


The Love of a Royal and the Vows of a Commoner

by Yaeger94



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, F/M, Love Confessions, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Non-Canonical Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yaeger94/pseuds/Yaeger94
Summary: Even though the war between the Clover and Spade Kingdom had ended years ago, the members of the Black Bulls had still been feeling its effects.  After an attack that leaves the Black Bulls divided, things change for them, for better or worse.
Relationships: Asta/Noelle Silva, Gauche Adlai/Grey, Magna Swing/Luck Voltia, Vanessa Enoteca/Finral Roulacase
Comments: 43
Kudos: 79





	1. The One He Loves

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the stuff in this story I made up, but there are still spoilers for Black Clover.

"So... _hic_...Asta, do you have a girl you love?" Vanessa slurred.

It was a day off for the Black Bulls, the first day off they've had in a while. They won the battle against the Spade Kingdom after a three-year war between them and the Clover Kingdom, which merged all four kingdoms into one. It was done to ensure a war between multiple kingdoms would never happen again. The newly formed magical council still hadn't picked a name, even though it had been over two years since the kingdoms merged, because of residents from the kingdoms refusing to merge into one kingdom, forming an organization similar to the Eye of the Midnight Sun, deadset on making sure the council will have a hard time making decisions. Members of all the magic night squads have to constantly be on the watch for these people, so they rarely got a break anymore. Thankfully, the organization, known as the Blanks, had stopped showing up as much, so some of the magic knight squads got a day off every once in a while.

The Black Bulls were using this to their fullest, with Vanessa drinking as much as she could in a single day, Luck trying to fight everyone who bothered to, Finral was working on improving his spacial magic, and the others were relaxing. All except for one. Asta was taking the day off to visit the grave of his foster brother Yuno, who had died at the hands of the Spade Kingdom near the end of the war. He gave his life for the good of the kingdoms, and almost ended the war near the end of it, but suffered a painful death at the hands of the Spade Kingdoms Dark Triad. Yuno had lost an arm to Zenon, who used his demon form to try to kill himself and Yuno, by self-destructing next to him. He managed to get out of the way in time but still lost most of his right arm. Then Vanica shot a long-ranged attack using the blood of her fellow soldiers, which impaled him in his side. Then Dante used his body magic to morph his arm into a sword and cut Yuno in half, finally killing him. Asta saw this happen, but he couldn't do anything on account of being held back by his own fear and Yuno not wanting Asta to get hurt, but after seeing what happened to Yuno, Asta became filled with rage, he granted his devil full control of his body, killing Vanica and seriously injuring Dante. Asta has no recollection of what happened, all he knows is that he made Dante go insane, which made him feel like a monster.

The war ended because of the sacrifice Yuno made and Asta losing control. When Asta finally saw Yuno's body, he broke down in tears and screamed in agony at the loss of his brother, rival, and friend. Asta tries to go to Yuno's grave every week, but no one tries to follow him. Asta had just gotten back from visiting Yuno's grave, and Vanessa had noticed it looked like he had been crying. She called him over to talk and ask him stupid questions to try and cheer him up. She never stopped drinking as they were talking, so she got drunker and drunker as she asked him more questions. She eventually asked the question if there was a girl he loved. The entire room went silent and Vanessa, noticing her mistake, sobered up a little and said, "Sorry, that seems really insensitive to ask you." Asta quickly replied "Oh it's okay. Let me think about it for a second." Everyone seemed surprised at his response, especially Noelle, who turned a bright cherry red. It was no secret to anyone, except Asta, that Noelle was in love with Asta. At first, Noelle tried to convince herself that it was just a crush and she would get over it soon. Time passed and she still got nervous around him and jealous when another girl talked to him. It wasn't until the end of the war that she realized that she loved him, and she was going to confess after the war, but when Yuno died, Asta started distancing himself from everyone. He slowly but surely starting getting back to normal with everyone, except Noelle. She felt like she shouldn't tell Asta that she loved him in fear of rejection and she feared that Asta wouldn't want to love anyone else again.

"Well, I guess I wanted Sister Lily to marry me, but I gave up on her a long time ago. Mimosa was in love with Klaus, so I didn't bother to like her. I thought you were dating Finral, and I thought the same about Gauche and Grey too. I guess the only person I would fall in love with would be Noelle, but she hated me, so I never bothered to fall in love with her either. I guess there's no girl I love." Asta replied after a few minutes. "Listen, I'm going back to my room, for now, I'm pretty tired. If anyone needs me, you know where to find me." Everyone went back to what they were doing, except Noelle, who had a look of sadness and rejection on her face. She thought about all the times she hit him, called him names, and avoided him, and hated herself for all those things. She couldn't say she was surprised at his response, she did treat him terribly just because she couldn't accept she loved him. "Hey Noelle, are you going to be okay?" Noelle looked to her side to see Grey standing next to her. Like Asta had guessed correctly, Gauche and Grey had started dating a while ago. She started being more confident and never stuttered anymore and Gauche started getting over his sister complex, although he still went out of his way for her sometimes. "Yeah Grey, I'm okay. Listen, I don't really want to talk right now. Is that okay?" Noelle wanted to go to her room and get angry at herself for her mistakes. "Yeah, you can talk to me later if you want." Grey went back over to where was Gauche and kissed him. Seeing that, Noelle rushed back to her room before she started to cry in front of everyone.

**Asta's Room**

**”** _Is there any girl you love?”_ That question was sticking in Asta’s head for some reason. He had been thinking about that question for a while now. He had spent a few hours now thinking about his answers to that question. Sister Lily was a very nice lady, but she never liked him I really return, so he eventually lost interest in her after a while, but it wasn’t until Yuno... Asta decided to think about Mimosa. She was a member of the Golden Dawn the same squad Yu... He stopped thinking about her and started thinking about Noelle. Noelle was a great friend of Asta’s, and he cared for her well-being, but he always thought she never wanted anything but to be squadmates. He started thinking about some of their times together, and he remembered seeing her brush at the festival after he said he liked her a lot... He started thinking about the other times Noelle blushed around him. They all happened after Asta said something to her or he defended her or touched her. He remembered catching her after she performed the spell that would get them into the underwater temple. He caught her in a bridal position. “Oh shit. Does Noelle like me?” He left his room to go confirm his suspicions himself. By the time he got there, she was already passed out with a bottle of Vanessa's booze next to her. 

**Noelle’s Room**

“ _She hated me, so I never bothered to fall in love with her either.”_ Noelle was crying into her pillow after she heard what Asta thought about her. On her way to her room, she snuck a bottle of Vanessa’s booze with her and tried to drink her sorrows away. “Ugh, how does Vanessa drink so much of this.” She said that but she didn’t stop drinking it. She was trying to drink her sorrows away. She hadn’t even drunk that much but she was already feeling the effects of intoxication take over.“Ugh... _hic..._ why didn’t I tell him I love him? She knew his brother died and that he was in a very tough spot but she had plenty of opportunities before that happened but she was too prideful to admit she loves a peasant. She started thinking irrationally due to the booze. “How come... _hic..._ that bastard never noticed how I felt?” She kept placing blame on everyone for not letting her confess her love. She blamed her family, Mimosa, the Black Bulls, even Asta. But the only person she could blame was herself for not telling him. She knew that it was her fault that she just couldn’t bring herself to admit something so shameful to herself because she was a royal. She spent the rest of the night wallowing in self-pity and passed out before Asta went in to check in on her.


	2. Familiar Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this stuff I have made up, but there are still spoilers for Black Clover.

"Ugh, my head." Noelle had awoken strewn out on her bed a few hours later, her hair a tangled mess of knots that would take her a long time to fix. She looked around her surroundings for the bottle she had taken from Vanessa the previous night, hoping to put it back before she noticed it had gone missing. "How does she drink so much of this and still function the next day?" Noelle felt sick and wanted to go back to sleep, but wanted to attempt to erase the mistake she made last night. She doesn't even know why she felt so bad, all she stole was a bottle of booze because Asta said he never bothered to love her because of how poorly she treated him. She eventually found the bottle under her bed, with not even a drop left inside of it. She quietly left her room to locate Vanessa, who was usually passed out drunk near the entrance to the base. Thankfully, the base hadn't changed yet, so it was easier for Noelle to navigate through the dark. Just as she had thought, Vanessa was passed out drunk near the entrance, with about 13 to 17 bottles scattered around her.

Although she wasn't expecting to see Finral cuddled up next to her. The two were very close, but it always seemed like they had mutual respect between them. Noelle was a little surprised to see the scene and started to wonder if they did this regularly before her hangover started to come back again, and she dropped the thing, for now, giving the two some privacy. She placed the bottle next to one of the other ones and quietly made the trek back to her room.

At least, she tried to make it back. The hideout started shifting positions about halfway back to her room. Not many people have been awake to see the hideout shift, but unfortunately for Noelle, she was about to be the next person to see it happen. She felt a light rumble beneath her feet as the part of the hallway she was in started shifting positions with other parts of the hideout. The cubes that made up the base quickly and violently moved around, almost throwing Noelle out of the base. She screamed very loudly, forgetting that she was trying to sneak her way back to her room. Her being hungover was enough to make her sick to her stomach, but getting flung around at high speeds while barely hanging on was enough to make her pass out again. After what felt like an eternity of being flung around, Noelle felt the part of the hallway snap back into place, and she fell onto her knees.

She just laid on the ground for a while, trying to recover from the horrific feeling of being flung around for about 5 minutes straight, trying not to throw up. She laid on the floor for several minutes, in a state of almost passing out but she managed to fight it. She was about to get up when she heard Asta's voice to her left shouting at someone. "Why are you here again, why won't you leave me alone! I'm sorry okay, but why are you doing this to me Yuno!?" It took Noelle a second to realize she was right next to Asta’s door, something that made her incredibly embarrassed. “ _Why is Asta talking to himself? Wait, did he say he wanted Yuno to leave him alone?"_ He said it with a mix of pain and sadness that sounded very familiar to her. What caught her more off guard was hearing the voice of Asta's dead foster brother Yuno also coming from his room. Noelle quickly stood up and put her ear next to Asta's door to listen to what they were saying more clearly. 

**Asta's** **Room, A While Earlier**

Asta laid awake in his bed, slightly upset that he couldn't talk to Noelle and ask if she loved him or loved him at one point in the time they've known each other. Though the more he thought about it, the more he thought that it was a good thing Noelle was passed out and he didn't say anything he would regret. He was trying to think if he loved Noelle at all, although he couldn't think of anything other than here verbally and physically abusing him whenever he did something nice for her. "Aghh, this is hurting my brain! I should just try to sleep and think about this later," he said to no one. He felt like it would help him for tomorrow if he got good sleep for once.

He actually managed to fall asleep very quickly, but the nightmare he had made him feel scared. He saw him and Yuno when they were little when Yuno had his necklace taken from him by someone and Asta tried fighting the man. He was beaten to the ground, except this time the man used his grimoire to try to kill him. Yuno jumped in his way and was impaled in several places killing him. Everything in his vision turned red and black before he started watching another scenario made up by his mind. It was when Yuno and Asta were fighting the leader of the Eye of the Midnight Sun when Yuno was waiting for him to surpass his limits and join him, except he was too late to join him. Yuno was already falling back to the ground with Asta's anti-magic sword sticking out of his torso. A flash of his anti-magic devil appeared and made him wake up. Asta woke a few hours later, covered in sweat with tears streaming down his pale face, a feeling of deep pain and sadness inside that felt painfully familiar to him. "Bad dream?" someone asked Asta. "Yeah, I"m okay now..." Asta jerked his head to the side of his bed to see Yuno standing next to his bed with Asta's five-leaf clover grimoire in his hands.

"Why are you back again, I thought you were gone after the last time this happened." Asta got out of his bed and went into a defensive stance, a common thing he did when he felt a threat was nearby. He tried using his ki to sense anything off about him but all he felt was Noelle’s ki outside of his door. Asta was wondering why Noelle was kneeling outside his door when Yuno replied back to Asta. "Yeah, well, I'm back and you should know why I am." "What are you talking about Yuno, you've done this before and said the same thing. You said the same thing at your grave a few weeks ago, before disappearing. I tried to talk to you but you ignored me and said that you should know why you're here before leaving with a yellow light surrounding you. You left me again but you were so cryptic that I couldn't understand what you meant. Can you tell me why you're back this time?" Yuno had appeared to Asta wearing his usual clothing with his Golden Dawn robe. "Are you trying to haunt me or something, are you upset that I didn't try to fight with you and now you're dead or..." "No, it's not that. It's something else that's brought me back." Asta was contemplating all this again, believing that Yuno had come back for revenge.

"What happened to you? You abandoned your grimoire at my grave, and it's been collecting dust for a while now. I can tell you haven't used it since that day. Are you scared of your demon Asta or are you giving up on using it?" Asta was about to scream at his brother, but couldn't find the words, not wanting to answer any questions for him in case he was a member of the Blanks. They’ve been known for doing complex manipulation on their targets. "How do I know you're not a Blank? Tell me something only the real Yuno would know before I tell you anything." Yuno breathed a sign before asking me "Why did you give up on your dream of becoming the Wizard King? Why did you give up when I died?"

Asta was taken aback by what Yuno had asked him, about Asta giving up on the one dream he had. He had told no one that he had given up on his dream of becoming the Wizard King because he felt he was setting himself up for disappointment by trying to achieve something almost impossible. It made Asta incredibly angry at this apparition or ghost or whatever you wanted to call him for reminding Asta of the one thing he promised he would achieve no matter what. "Why are you here again, why won't you leave me alone! I'm sorry okay, but why are you doing this to me Yuno!?" Yuno stood there, stone-faced as he always used to act around everyone.

"I'm not blaming you for anything Yuno, but ever since you died, you've been in the back of mind, taunting me, screaming at me to not give up on my dream but I can't okay! When you died, part of me died with you, and that part included our dream. We were working towards our dream together, but now that you're gone, I don't think I'll be able to do it without thinking about the sacrifice you made. You were selfless and fought until the very end, but me? I was too scared to do anything and let the devil inside me take control when I saw your mutilated corpse and I murdered somebody and drove another person insane. Do you know how it feels to do that to somebody without being in control of your body because your emotions got the better of you? Do you know Yuno? Because I don' think you fucking know how that feels!" With all the anger released from him, Yuno slowly approached Asta, his stone-face still not changing as he looked at him before he gave Asta a hug and told him "It's okay, I forgive you. I understand that it's going to take a long time for you to recover from this, but, as my last request to you, can you please try to work towards your goal again?"

Asta, feeling the love from his foster brother radiate onto him, began to break down crying, unable to hold his sadness in, and cried into his brother's arms. Yuno began glowing a bright yellow and started disappearing again. He sensed that Asta would try to work towards becoming the Wizard King, even though he never said it. "I'll see you again once you start to work towards your goal again, okay." With those words, he disappeared once again, dropping Asta's grimoire, leaving Asta in the middle of his room on the floor, crying at seeing and losing his brother again. Asta picked up his grimoire, went to his bed, and cried himself to sleep. As he fell asleep, he started thinking about all his friends and squadmates that got him through his experiences, but for some reason, Noelle wouldn't leave his mind, not until he completely fell asleep. Noelle on the other side of the door was crying at hearing the heartfelt conversation between the two bothers, and Noelle felt like she began to understand Asta a little better now.

She stayed next to his door until she was sure he was asleep. Noelle quietly said to no one "I love you so much Asta." between her quiet sobs. Noelle got up, and went back to her room, slightly crying herself to sleep, knowing the pain Asta had been feeling the past few years and felt that she should try to connect to him tomorrow, but still give him time to recover from this experience. They both fell asleep that night thinking about each other, a smile on both their faces as they slept until the sun came up, signaling a new day had come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know what to say here you other than I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.


	3. Some Things Never Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took a while for me to write, I had to rewrite a lot of things and change a lot of things. Expect the next chapter on Saturday, and I might do a bonus, non-canon Halloween chapter.

**Noelle's Room, Early Morning**

Noelle woke a few hours later, still slightly hungover but doing better than she was earlier when she was flung around a cube of the Black Bulls hideout. Stretching, she gets out of her bed to do her daily ritual, which would take a little longer than usual. Ready to get up for the day, she leaves her and goes to Asta's room to check in on him. She quietly opens his door slightly, seeing a faint smile on his face and his grimoire in his arms. She started blushing at seeing a sleeping Asta. " _He's so cute when he's sleeping._ " She leaves him alone for now to go get something for breakfast from Charmy, who is always up early to eat an inhuman amount of food. Entering the commons area, she goes in to check and see if Finral and Vanessa were still cuddling. To her surprise, they both were cuddling in the same positions they were in hours earlier. Looking at them being happy and in a comfortable relationship, even though Finral tried to be a womanizer and Vanessa seducing every man she saw gave Noelle a little hope that she and Asta could have a good loving relationship.

Seeing it also made her slightly jealous of the two having a nice relationship even though they basically tried to get together with every person that caught their interest. She hated that she and Asta were so distant from each other even though they've been through so much together. She hated that everyone around her had a loving relationship but she struggled to even face Asta. She went outside to calm down, not thinking rationally right now, and leave the two lovers alone. As she went outside she looked out to the forest to see light flames in the distance. When she arrived over to the flames, all she saw was Magna hitting fireballs with his flame magic baseball bat. "You do know you going to start a fire by doing that," she told him. Magna looked behind to see Noelle, with a grin on his face, and told her "If you scream as you did earlier, you might end up waking all of us up." A blush appeared on her face as she got completely embarrassed that someone heard her earlier. "Touche, Magna." Is all she could say to him before he started hitting baseballs again. "Did you go to check on Asta and feel the base move or were you something else?" "That's none of your business!" Noelle shouted at him. "I was just, um, putting something back."

Magna chuckled to himself before telling her "It's okay if you were, I worry about the little guy sometimes. I think it's not very manly of me to worry about his well being, but I hope he's doing okay. I always told him to be manly, but honestly, I think it would best if he was brave right now. I understand how he feels when he lost someone close to him, but I pushed through it and tried to be manly but Asta, he's taking his time to grieve over something very painful for him. He's brave. braver than I could ever hope to be. I can see why you love him so much, the little guy has helped us all so much these past few years. If you ever get a chance to tell him how you feel, tell him how much he means to you, and how he's helped you. Yes, I know you love him, we all know you do, you're pretty bad at being subtle." Noelle looked at Magna with shock, respect, and embarrassment at what he just said to her. The old her would probably hit him with one of her water spells, but she was trying to change so she instead told him "Thanks for the words of encouragement, but if you know me, you'll know how prideful I am of my status as a royal, and my family would really disapprove of me marrying a commoner." Magna turned around at her and told her "I never said anything about you marrying him." Noelle blushed a very bright red that could be seen for miles before running back to the hideout. Magna turned back around and started chuckling to himself as he said to no one "Asta, you better marry that girl or I swear I'm going to kick your ass." 

Noelle stopped right outside of the door out of breath, blushing like crazy at admitting that she wanted to marry Asta. _"I should've hit him._ " is all she could think about before heading back into the base. By the time she came back, almost everyone had woken up now, with the exception of Yami, who was probably on the toilet, and Asta, who was probably the only one still asleep. Zora tried messing with Nero, by sticking a stink bug in her hair, that went off and caused the two to get into a fight. Finral and Vanessa were sitting next to each other, talking about going out on their next day off. Henry was looking at everyone from above so he didn't accidentally take anyone's magic. Grey and Gauche came around the corner, the two already embracing each other already. Charmy was making food while trying to talk to the quiet and creepy Gordon. Magna came in from the front door only to be barraged by Luck who was waiting for him to show up so he could fight him. Finral had to break up the two before Magna put another hole in the base. "Hey Magna, can you get Asta up, we got a mission from the capital." Magna nodded at him and left quickly so he could get back to fighting Luck. "Hey Noelle, Vanessa wanted me to tell you to talk to her." Noelle gulped as she made her way to Vanessa who immediately started talking to her. "Okay, I'm going to cut to the chase, I know you stole some of my booze yesterday after what Asta said about you, but believe me, there are better things than alcohol to cope with things." Noelle nodded very fast before asking Vanessa about the thing that's been bothering her since last night. "Can I ask you something, Vanessa? How long have you and Finral been dating?" Vanessa, for the first time, blushed the question and immediately called Finral over. "Hey so Finral, the jig is up, Noelle knows." Finral now began to blush just as hard as his girlfriend was. Magna had come back shouting "Okay Luck, I'm back and I'm going to beat your ass up into next week!" Finral they suggested they go into a more private spot to explain themselves.

They began to explain how long they've been dating and why they kept it a secret. "It was around two years ago that we began dating. We both did it as an experiment, but we really clicked and decided to stay together. After the war, we were both worried that we would never find someone and we thought the best person for both of us was each other, as corny as it sounds." Finral explained. "I'll admit, I only started dating her because of her wonderful bre..." Finral stopped speaking as Vaness had smacked him in the back of his head. "Okay, let's drop this for now, the captain should be here any minute to explain the mission." Noelle left the two alone for now so she could process what was just told to her. Looking behind her she saw asking eating some food next to Charmy and Gordon. A smile appeared on her face as she saw that Asta had his grimoire again. Looking at his face, he seemed pretty happy, and seeing him happy made her happy as she started blushing again. She began to get lost in her thoughts about the conversation she had with Magna, as Captain Yami briefed them on their mission.

**Asta's Room, A Little Earlier**

Asta had awoken to the sound of banging on his bedroom door. “Yo, get up little Rasta, we got a mission!” screamed Magna. Asta, disoriented from being woken up so suddenly, fell out of his bed, dropping his grimoire in front of his bedroom door. Asta quickly gained back his composure and telling Magna “I’ll be out in a minute!” Hearing Magna’s footsteps move away from his room, Asta picked up his grimoire, looking at it with a certain disgust most royals have when they look at commoners. He was about to throw it out of his window when he remembered the events that happened last night. He remembered the promise he made to Yuno on becoming the Wizard King again and getting the grimoire he tried to abandoned back from Yuno. Trying not to overthink things, Asta puts his grimoire in his holder and gets dressed in some new clothes. As he reached for his doorknob, he couldn't bring himself to open it as he remembered what he said about Noelle yesterday, saying he never bothered to love her became she treated him poorly. He was unsurprisingly mad at himself for saying that about her because it made him seem like he never appreciated what she did for him and what he did for her in return. " _I should apologize to her, I don't want her to hate me over some stupid question._ " He wasn't sure if he had feelings for her, he was almost definitely sure that she had feelings for him, although he didn't want to ask her in case she doesn't have feelings for him and end up embarrassing them both and ruining their relationship. He opened his door and ran to the commons area for some breakfast and to hear about the mission they got.

As he entered the commons, he saw Vanessa and Finral talking to Noelle, Luck and Magna having a sparring match, Grey and Gauche were enjoying each other's company, and Zora and Nero having an argument about something Asta didn't care about. He sat down next to Charmy and Gordon, both of which were talking about their favorite type of food. He saw Henry on the balcony, observing everyone doing their things, looking happy to see his friends having fun as usual. As he got some food from Charmy, he looked back over to Noelle, only to see Vanessa hit Finral in the back of his head. " _All these years later and no one has changed._ " Asta thought to himself with a smile on his face. 

A few minutes later, Yami came from around a corner, getting out a cigarette as he shouted "All right everyone, listen up! There have been reports that a base belonging to the Blanks that has been found by Hage Village near the demon skull. I need two groups of people to go check it out and report it to the magic council. I'll let you guys make the decision on who to send, I gotta go take a dump." With that, he leaves the Black Bulls to decide who's going to go to Hage. They chose Group One which consists of Asta, Magna, and Vanessa who are supposed to check the area with the supposed base, and they chose Group Two consisting of Finral, Noelle, and Grey to stay nearby as backup and to keep an eye out for reinforcements. Asta and Magna knew the area the best and Asta had a good idea of where the base was. Everyone got their stuff ready and they head out to Hage Village using Finral's transportation magic as Noelle got disappointed that she didn't get pared with Asta but she knew she still couldn't face him and would end up hitting him if he did anything nice to her. Grey and Gauche shared a kiss as she left and Vanessa and Finral shared a ... look that caused them both to blush as Vanessa stepped through Finral's spatial portal. "Are sure you wanna go back, you don't have to go," Magna asked Asta. Asta thought about it for a second before saying "I need to do this. How else am I supposed to become the Wizard King?" Magna grinned before saying "Hell yeah, it's been so long since you said that I thought you gave up." Asta chuckled nervously before stepping through with Magna. Noelle and Grey started talking about Asta as they stepped through the portal. Finral quickly runs through his portal as he couldn't hold it open anymore.

Asta stepped on the other side of the portal to see Hage Village, almost completely unchanged from when he was a kid. Seeing it again after so much time of avoiding it, it brought back memories of him and Yuno when they still lived here. Asta began tearing up a little when Magna put his hand on his shoulder aa he told him "Hey kid, right now, you don't need to be manly, you need to brave. There's nothing braver than facing painful memories and coming through it stronger than you were before you faced them. Let's go check if the reports are true, and if they are, beat up those Blanks." Asta smiled as he ran towards the village, with Magna by his side, ready to face any potential threat they encountered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already further than I thought I would get. I think I've decided how long this story is gonna be, although some of the ideas I have are a little out there and might show up but not be expanded on. The only thing I plan on expanding on is the relationships between the characters, the Blanks, and Asta getting over Yuno's death. I expect it might be around 20 to 30 chapters, but I'm still early into this story so it might be shorter or longer than I planned.


	4. Personal Demons

As both groups made their through Hage Village, Asta kept having memories of him and Yuno when they were younger, Asta proposing to Sister Lily, Asta getting rejected by Sister Lily, Asta getting hit by Sister Lily when he didn't take no for an answer, and so many more memories of when he used to live and visit the small village. Magna and Noelle stayed by him the entire time they walked through the village in case he needed someone to comfort him. As they walked past the church, Asta saw Sister Lily setting clothes out to dry. He started feeling a little uncomfortable seeing her after so long and both Magna and Noelle took note of this and they asked him "Asta do you want to talk to her after we're done with our mission? You don't need to confront anyone or anything that makes you uncomfortable." "Sure, I'll talk to her after we're done, I need to focus on the mission right now," Asta replied. As they continued to make their way towards the demon skull, they all made small talk along the way to try and take Asta's mind off of everything but it didn't seem to work. Asta went almost completely silent, no matter what they tried to say to him. Noelle eventually started talking to Grey about how she should confess to Asta, even though it didn't seem like the best time to talk about it. "Noelle, I think the only way you can confess to him is to be straightforward and say you love him. Asta would've figured it out a long time ago but he's not that smart." As much as she didn't want to admit it, that was probably her best option. Noelle had finally made up her mind. She would confess her love to Asta after this mission was over.

While Noelle decided when she would confess, Magna challenged Asta to a race to the demon skull. "Hey Asta, the last one to get to the skull has to take care of the captain's pets for a month." With that, Magna took off running, with Asta quickly behind him. Unfortunately for Magna, Asta had been training every muscle in his body ever since he abandoned his grimoire, which made him very strong. Asta quickly began to outpace Magna, who already started to sweat profusely, while Asta hadn't even broken a sweat. Something felt off about the way Asta had been acting, but they thought it was because he was walking through the place he and his brother used to live. Asta had already been at the demon skull for about 10 minutes when the rest of them got there. "Damn.. _huff..._ Asta, I didn't... _huff..._ think you were that... _huff..._ fast." Asta had still hadn't said a word, and he gave off a cold aura that sent a chill down everyone's spine when they got near him. "Asta, are you okay, you've been acting very weird since we walked past the church." Noelle had asked him. It was like a light switch had flipped on and Asta started acting like his usual self. "Huh, yeah, I'm fine Noelle. Why do ask? Woah, when did we get to the skull?" 

Everyone was surprised at what Asta had told them like he didn't remember the past 10 minutes at all. "Asta, do you not remember me asking you to a race to the skull?" Magna inquired. "When did you ask me to race you? That would explain why my legs are a little tired." Everyone was left speechless at what he told them but they didn't have any more time to ask more questions because they heard noises coming from the area nearby. "Look, let's finish the mission, and then we can figure out what happened to you." Magna and Vanessa walked towards the noise with their grimoires at the ready, with Asta close behind, his hand at his grimoire, ready to take out one of his anti-magic swords. 

They had spent some time searching for the base, with Asta in front because he knew the area the best. They were coming up empty after about 20 minutes of searching in the direction of the noises. "Hey Asta, are you sure you know this area? You don't seem like you know where you're going at all," Vanessa had asked. "Well, I haven't been here in over 3 years, so I don't exactly remember everything. The only thing I remember is that there should be a cave nearby." Asta replied. Right as he said it, Magna shouted from a distance "I think I found it!" Everyone rushed over to find Magna next to a dark cave that Asta confirmed was the one he remembered. “Okay, now that we’ve found the cave, we need to check it out and capture any Blanks we might find. If there are no Blanks inside, we report this to the magical council and they send people to keep an eye on it so the Blanks don’t turn it into a hideout if they already haven’t. Alright, let’s go.” Magna told the others. He created a magic baseball bat to light their way into the cave, Vanessa put threads on all of them in case she had to pull them out, and Asta readied his grimoire in case he had to bring out his swords. Group Two waited outside as backup in case anything went wrong.

As they made their way into the cave, Asta used his ki to sense anyone inside but only felt Magna and Vanessa’s ki. After walking for about 10 minutes, and running into many dead ends, they found a bunch of lab equipment, notes about the different types of magic, and a lot of notes on the Dark Triad for some reason. This confused them all as Asta had defeated them two years ago, but the notes on the different types of magic were the strangest thing. They all were talking about the types of ways the magic could resurrect someone and a new type of magic that they were trying to create called Soul Magic. That must have been what the lab equipment was for, but it didn’t explain why no members of the Blanks were here. As they began reading through the notes, Vanessa found a plan to kidnap Asta so they could use his anti-magic to do something to him. “Hey Asta, do you sense anything off in here?” Vanessa, as she began to sweat asked. Asta used his ki but didn’t sense anything different until he felt something hit him in the gut. It was a fireball that burned his clothes and robe. “There’s Blanks in here!” Magna shouted to the back of the cave, hoping the others would hear. They started showing themselves one by one until there were more than 50 Blanks in the cave. They all dawned black and white robes covering their entire bodies and concealing their faces.

Magna tried to send fireballs at them but some trap magic activated and sent them back at Magna. Asta took out one of his anti-magic swords and blocked it from hitting him. “Haven’t seen you use your swords in a while,” Magna said, slight fear in his voice. Asta didn’t have time to respond as Vanessa pulled back on their strings to bring them out of the way as ice rods shot towards them. “Pay a little more attention you morons,” Vanessa shouted at the two. Asta tried using his ki to predict their attacks but a few didn’t get picked up by his ki and hit them. _"Damn it, why I am not picking up their ki?"_ Asta thought as he was hit by another attack.

Noelle, Finral, and Grey ran into the cave as Magna was knocked out by a light magic spell as it hit him square in the chest. It left him seriously injured, but Grey managed to transform some loose rocks nearby into a protective case around him. Finral took him and teleported him back to the Black Bulls base. Noelle shot water spells at them all in vain as fire magic was evaporated before they even got close to the Blanks. Grey tried her best to turn their attacks into other objects but a few ended up hitting her. Finral tried teleporting their attacks back at them but they were starting to overwhelm him. Vanessa’s Red Thread of Fate magic didn’t seem to be working at all. In fact, all of their spells felt weaker except for Asta. There was some type of magic that was nullifying all their magic, making it less effective. Eventually, they all started falling to the Blank’s attacks.

Grey was hit by multiple attacks at once, causing her to get knocked back into some rocks, causing them to fall and trap her. Vanessa was hit up close by a dark magic spell that incapacitated her. Finral, anger building inside him from his girlfriend being attacked, try and failed using the closest thing he had to an attack spell but he still couldn’t defend against all the attacks and was hit all over the bottom half of his body, causing him to double over in pain. Noelle tried using Sea Dragon’s Roar but she didn’t have enough magic left to use it and was stabbed in the back from behind from a Blank and she screamed in pain.

Asta was the last one standing, but he had his own shares of cuts and bruises all over his body, using his sword to prop himself up. He saw all of his friends had fallen and started thinking about the day Yuno died when he died by sacrificing himself. “ _No,”_ Asta had thought as the Blanks started making their way towards his fallen friends. “ _No,”_ he thought as one of them started saying a spell, a powerful one that would surely kill them all. It was a light magic spell that was getting brighter the longer they kept saying the spell. _“No. No. No. No. No. No. No, not again.”_ he thought as he started falling to the ground. He heard Grey and Finral pleading in vain for them to stop. He saw Vanessa’s body knocked out cold next to him, but the thing that scared him the most was Noelle’s scream of pain and desperation. 

Just before he hit the ground, two members of the Blanks grabbed Asta and dragged him to the other side of the cave so he wouldn’t get hit by the spell. They kicked him to the ground and his grimoire hit the ground and opened. Asta, barely conscious, desperately began to read the spell to try and save his friends. “Anti-Magic: Demon Control 100%,” he read off in a quiet voice. His vision was consumed by darkness as he slipped into unconsciousness.  
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The searing pain in Noelle's back was driving her crazy, as she was sure she was about to die. “ _Dammit, I let my guard down and now we’re all going to die._ ” She looked up to see Asta’s unconscious body lying next to a crowd of Blanks. They realized too late that it was a setup to try and kidnap Asta and they succeeded and were going to kill them all. Hearing Grey and Finral scream from behind her were causing her heart-rate to accelerate at a fast pace and seeing Vanessa’s unconscious body in front of her made her scared for their lives. She was going to die without telling Asta how she felt. _"Someone, anyone, please help us. I'm begging you, please._ " Noelle thought to her self as closed her eyes, waiting for her incoming death.

Suddenly, a cold, dark aura filled the room as Asta’s body in front of them stood up and knocked away some of the Blanks. The Blank casting the light magic spell stopped and looked at Asta as something terrifying was happening to him. He began to scream in pain as his eyes rolled into his skull as they turned into a dark red that burned bright as two three-foot-long horns also began to protrude out of his head. His bones and joints began to crack as he began to get taller as his skin and clothes were absorbed and turned into a dark black that absorbed all the light around him. He grew to the height of eight feet, dwarfing everyone in the cave. His hands turned into long black claws that were sharp and pointy. His mouth turned into a twisted smile as the rest of his body grew with his height and absorbed into the darkness. Long wings protruded from its back as its mouth became filled with razor-sharp teeth. Asta was unrecognizable in this form, a tall demon-like creature, with giant wings, long claws, dark red eyes, sharp teeth, and pitch-black skin. It let out a roar that almost deafened everyone in the cave as it stared down at the Blanks as it had begun attacking them left and right, slashing through all their magic attacks with split-second reflexes faster than Vanessa’s. It grabbed one member and began tearing into their neck with hits sharp teeth, killing them, and leaving blood all over the cave floor. The blood that had landed on the demon creature was absorbed into its skin, leaving no trace on its torso. It began slashing at the chests of the Blanks and stomping on them, turning their bodies into nothing more than bloody piles.

It ripped one in half, and their guts spilled onto him and the cave floor. It tore one Blank’s arm off and started tearing off the rest of their limbs until they were a bloody torso. They all watched in horror as their friend was mercilessly killing all of the Blanks. No attack fazed him, any attack that managed to hit him was absorbed and thrown back at ten times the strength it usually was. It was hit by a fireball and it spits the ball back at them and setting three of them on fire. Then there was only one left pleading for mercy, hoping to be spared. It picked up the Blank as the Blank began taunting the demon as he did. “Put me down you monster! I’ll tell you our plan if you let me live, please don’t kill me!” he screamed. It looked at the Blank and said in a deep, demonic voice “You deserve no mercy,” before biting their head off and dropping their limp body to the ground. It turned around and began to look at Asta's friends, fear plastered all over their faces as it began to walk over to them. It picked up Noelle and held her as a grin was put on his face. Noelle could feel what little magic she had left drain out of her and go into the demon. She was beginning to feel weaker as the demon started to take more than her magic now that it was all gone. “Asta, please stop this!” she shouted at him. Its grin disappeared as the creature dropped Noelle and began screaming in pain, grabbing its head as it began to turn back into Asta. When the creature disappeared completely, they saw Asta, his hands on his head, and covered in blood, as he was still screaming in pain. He slowly turned around to see the carnage and death he caused, as he let out a scream of terror before falling backward next to Noelle. The scream slowly turned into sobs as Asta realized he had killed more people. Noelle wanted to comfort him, but she had no idea what to say after what happened. She reached her hand out to him as she tried to tell him something, anything to comfort him. “Asta, I...” she began to say to him but she failed to find the words to say. Asta pushed her away as he told her “Don’t touch me! I’m a monster, a terrible fucking monster!” as he broke down crying. It was unnerving to hear who everyone thought was the Black Bulls' strongest member besides Yami cry in defeat as he let the demon inside take control of him once again and brought him down to his lowest point he's been in a long time. Noelle tried to put her arms around him again, and he didn't resist this time, hugging her back as his sobs echoed through the cave. Noelle didn't care what had happened right now, she couldn't even feel embarrassed that Asta was holding her and she was holding him, she just cared that they lived and not thinking about anything else except what she promised she would do after the mission. She knew it was a bad time to do so, but she didn’t care, she knew this would be her only chance. Noelle looked him in the eyes told him "Asta, I love you," as she kissed him on his lips.


	5. Torn Pages

Grey and Finral watched from behind as Noelle proclaimed her love to Asta and kissed him in an attempt to comfort him which had seemed to be slightly successful. Asta's face showed no emotion as Noelle was kissing him beside the tears streaming down his face. When Noelle finally stopped kissing Asta, she looked at his face and got worried at what she saw. One of his irises was still red from his demon transformation. Asta stood up and looked over to Finral and told him in an empty tone "Please take us back, I don't want to be here anymore." Asta walked to where his grimoire laid and picked it up. He opened it and started an attempt to rip out the pages but they didn't even get a tear in the pages. When he couldn't tear the pages, he threw his grimoire at the cave walls as he screamed in anger. He started to stomp on his grimoire while screaming "Why, why, why, why did I do it again? Why did I let it gain control again, why couldn't I stop it from killing them?" Asta eventually stopped and kicked it to the other side of the cave to abandon it again. He walked back over to Grey and moved the rocks off of her, along with picking up Vanessa's unconscious body and giving it to Grey. While he was doing that, Noelle walked with great difficulty over to where Asta's grimoire lay and hid it in her robe. She walked with great pain in her back to where Finral had opened a portal back to the Black Bulls, as Asta saw how much trouble she was having walking. Asta walked over to her, picked Noelle up, and put her on his back. "Thank you, Asta," was the only thing she could say to her as she began to feel incredibly nervous, the cold aura from earlier still lingering around Asta, caused her to go silent. They all walked through the portal as Finral had to prop himself against a wall to stop himself from falling over. He quickly walked through the portal as he could feel the last of magic deplete very quickly.

As they all appeared on the other side of Finral's portal, the remaining members of the Black Bulls except Henry rushed to their side. "What happened to you? When Magna showed up out of nowhere, we got nervous something really bad happened to you," Gauche had asked. "The Blanks used some cloaking magic to hide and they attack us. Asta couldn't even sense them using that thing," Noelle told them as Asta sat her down in a chair nearby. "A light magic spell hit Magna in his chest and incapacitated him so we sent him back here for his own safety," Grey said as she carefully put Vanessa's unconscious body on a couch with the help of Zora and Nero. "They used some kind of spell to make our attacks weaker and take us out," Finral said as Luck propped him against the wall. "One of those bastards managed to sneak up behind me and stab me in the back with something," Noelle said. "They hit Vanessa with some dark magic attack, Grey got knocked back into some rocks and they fell on her, and my legs got torn up real bad," Finral said as he tried standing up again but he fell back down on his back. "What happened with Asta though, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him other than a few scratches on him. How did he get off easy while the rest of you are severely injured?" Zora inquired them. All of them stayed quiet and looked away when Asta told everyone "I turned into a demon and killed them all, that's why I'm fine." in an emotionless voice. Everyone in the room felt their heart=rate increase over what Asta told them, feeling a chill go down their spines. The smile on Luck's face disappeared, Charmy looked absolutely terrified, and Zora stopped showing his sharp teeth. They could all feel the cold aura Asta was giving off and some of them backed away from him, not able to stand the powerful aura. "Why did you turn into a demon," Nero asked, shaking slightly as she did. "I did it to protect everyone, I didn't mean to kill the Blanks. I had no control over what I did, but either I did that or let everyone die. Would you all prefer that I let our friends die instead of some worthless Blanks that pose a danger to everyone, ones that have been terrorizing everyone because they're people who can't accept change, ones that have wasted their worthless lives for something stupid? They deserved to die if that's what they want to do with their worthless lives," Asta said, still in an emotionless tone. " _Somethings off about the way he's acting, Asta never would call anyone worthless, no matter if they were trying to kill him,_ " Gauche had thought, convinced something else was going on with him.

Then he noticed that both of Asta's irises were red, a color that his eyes only changed when he was using some of his attacks. "Asta, what's wrong with your eyes, they're red," Gauche had pointed out to them all. Asta went silent as he summoned his grimoire to himself, which came out from Noelle's robe, and he pulled out his anti-magic swords and began to charge at his friends, his cold aura turning into a fiery hatred. Zora quickly set down a trap that Asta ran into, knocking him unconscious, and he dropped his swords. "What the hell is wrong with him, why did he try to attack us," Zora asked. Gauche walked over to Asta and inspected his eyes, noticing that the red-eyes he had before had changed back into his usual green and the aura around him disappearing. "I think his demon was getting control of his body and could only control what he said until right now when he tried to attack us. I know Asta would never attack us for any reason, no matter what," Gauche elaborated. "I don't know what's going on right now, all I do know is that the rest of them should go see Dr. Owen and get their wounds healed. Finral, do you think you can open a portal to his office," Gauche asked. When they looked over to him, Finral was passed out and a puddle of blood formed beneath him. "Shit, we have to get them there fast or something else might happen to the rest of them. Everyone, get a broom and take someone with you to Dr. Owens. I'll take Grey and Noelle," Gauche quickly said, wanting to leave as soon as possible." Everyone, except for Henry, quickly flew themselves to Dr. Owen's office.

When they finally reached his office, Dr. Owens was talking to Yami about Magna's condition. Yami had taken him very shortly after he arrived back, wanting to get him checked out to see how bad his injury was. "Captain Yami, we had to take the rest of them who went on the mission. It was a setup by the Blanks." Gauche said. Dr. Owens quickly tried to take care of anyone that needed it, while sending out everyone who wasn't. They waited for hours outside of his office, afraid that something bad might have happened to the rest of them. When he finally came out, he announced everyone's conditions to them. "Grey and Asta only had a few cuts and bruises on them. Grey had a few broken bones but I patched her up quickly. Asta's anti-magic is working against me. I try to help him but nothing appears to be working right now. Noelle's stab wound is doing okay for right now. Whatever she got stabbed with won't let me heal it all the way so it's going to have to heal naturally. I managed to stop Finral's bleeding, but like Noelle's injury, it's going to have to heal naturally. Vanessa appears to be fine, but we won't know anything until she wakes up. Magna has suffered the worst of them all though. I healed his injury but it's been a few hours since he was hit by that spell and he still hasn't woken up. I'm hoping it's like your other friend's condition and he wakes up soon. It's going to take a few days to see if their condition improves. You can go in right now to talk to them, but I think it would best that they stayed overnight." 

Everyone was scared of what might happen to their friends, especially Magna and Finral who were in the worst condition. Walking in, almost everyone walked over to Finral. His legs were bandaged up completely, some blood leaked on the bandage before he was patched up. He seemed okay right now but he was clearly in pain. Noelle was next to his bed on her front, bandages on her back where her stab wound was. It seemed like an ordinary stab wound, except for the part that it wouldn't heal immediately. Vanessa and Magna were beds on the opposite part of the room. Magna's injury was even worse than they had thought. There was a scar 5 inches long where his lungs were, making everyone even more worried about his condition. Vanessa just looked like she was asleep, a mark of where she was hit on her head. It looked like the impact was enough to put a hole in her skull but her fate magic probably helped in making the injury less severe. Gauche kept everyone away from his girlfriend, wanting to be with her until they were forced to leave. Part of his sister complex still hadn't gone completely away and he instead treated Grey like he used to treat his sister, although in a less tame way. When they got to Asta's bed, the first thing they noticed is his face looked like he had gained his emotion back and he was sweating terribly and tossing around in his sleep, probably replaying the events of today in his mind like a nightmare. It made them worried about his condition, as it seemed he was damaged more mentally than physically.

When they were forced to leave, Gauche had managed to convince Dr. Owen to let Grey come home as her injuries weren't as severe as the others. It surprisingly worked, and Gauche just about ran out of there with Grey in a bridal position, causing her to blush and stutter. "H-h-h-hey, we d-d-d-don't need t-t-t-t-to leave immediately," she stuttered as Gauche carried her out of the room. The rest of them gave their goodbyes and left one after another until it was only the injured ones still in bed. Noelle was on her side, looking at Asta still having his nightmare hours after they arrived. She was worried about Asta and wanted to get up and try to comfort him again, but the pain in her back made it really painful to move. " _I really hope all of us get better soon, especially Finral and Magna,_ " Noelle had thought as she felt increasingly tired. She drifted off to sleep shortly afterward, hoping for all of them to get some sleep after what happened to them all.

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Asta awoke in a void of darkness with a light fog covering the area. He looked around in confusion about the new area, not being able to find where the ground stopped and the sky began as he wandered around. He heard voices of people who he's met throughout his life, some who weren't even alive anymore, taunting him, telling him that he's a failure, a mistake that should be erased, a stain on the Magic Knights, who should've died along with his brother. Asta placed his hands over his ears in an attempt to block out their voices but it caused them to get even louder, mentally forcing himself to the ground until they suddenly stopped by the sound of a sword hitting the walls of this weird world. He looked up to see the Dark Triad standing above him and looking down on him. Dante's hand was a blade that slammed at an invisible wall next to him, causing the scenery to change. Ruble started to appear, more specifically the walls of a castle, around him. A pane of glass landed behind him as Asta realized what was going on. "Asta, stay back, don't move, I can take on these guys," Yuno cried from behind him. Asta looked behind him as he felt reinforcement magic bind his arms and legs together. Dante was still smacking the walls as more and more of the scenery changed. The dark sky changed into a sky full of stars and a blue moon appeared bright in the sky. The wooden doors were cracked and splintered, their hinges still stuck to the side of the door, the carpet was strewn about in a ripped and tangled mess.

Yuno activated his spirit drive and charged at the Dark Triad, and aimed his sword at Dante. He dodged it and swiped his sword at Yuno's back. He dodged it by using his overdrive to blowback all three of Dark Triad. Vanica used her blood magic to try to catch Yuno in a cage of his blood by using a cut she gave him earlier in the fight. Yuno's blood began to form into a cage around his body that he broke with great effort by using his reinforcement magic around his cut. Zenon used his bone magic to stab Yuno from multiple angles but Yuno used his Gale White Bow spell to destroy most of the bones although he was still stabbed multiple times. Yuno was slammed to the ground by Dante's Gravity Magic, causing him to land on the splintered part of a door. While all this was going on, Asta was trying his best to get through Yuno's binds on his body. Yuno was laying on his knees with a huge splinter in his rib cage, bleeding profusing as he breathed heavily. Vanica used this opportunity to harden his blood and stop his blood flow to finally try and kill him. Yuno threw his Spirit of Zephyr at her at an incredible speed and cut her in half. It didn't kill her because of her resurrection curse but it did stop her from hardening Yuno's blood any further. He called the Spirit of Zephyr back and flew over to Zenon and tried to slice him in half but failed to do so. Yuno was in an incredibly weakened state but was still able to fight properly and use most of his strength. Asta broke through his confinement and flew over to help Yuno as he saw Zenon prepare to self-destruct next to Yuno. Asta threw his sword at Zenon, impaling him next to a wall, and made him unable to self destruct. Vanica tried to use the blood of her fellow soldiers to hit them both but Asta sent the attack back her and it hit her head and decapitated her. Asta flew towards Dante and tried to kill him but Dante was too fast and he swung his arm that he turned into a sword at him. It only got Asta in the arm as Dante had a look of fear on his face as no one had blocked his attack until now. Asta swung his sword down on Dante, splitting him in half. Asta looked back over to his brother to Dante had removed the sword from himself and self-destructed next to Yuno, making him lose his left arm. Vanica gained her head back and shot another long-range attack using blood from soldiers at Yuno's side. "No matter how much you try to fix your mistakes of the past, you can never undo them," Dante said from behind Asta. He charged at Yuno and cut him in half, killing Yuno again. "Let the fear consume you and let it guide your actions, for you know the monster you truly are," Dante said as he looked down at Yuno's bloody corpse. Asta got increasingly mad and pulled out his grimoire and read off the first spell he saw. "Anti-Magic: Demon Control 95%" is all he said as he realized his mistake.

Asta felt the demon transformation as his body began to grow into a devil yet again, but it felt instantaneous this time. Asta saw through the eyes of his devil form, everything red except for Dante and Vanica, who were silhouettes with a big red X on their faces. Asta flew over to Vanica and began to tear her body apart, limb by limb until she was nothing but a bunch of bloody body parts. Everything felt the same like in the cave, except this time, Asta was in control of all of his actions. He wanted to kill Vanica and Dante, he wanted to tear them apart until there was nothing left of them. Asta jumped at Dante surprising him, as he ripped Dante's head off over and over again, for a while, causing Dante to lose any sanity he had left as he died over and over again with nothing he could do about it. Asta's view then switched to when he was killing the Blanks in the cave. He closed his eyes as he didn't want to see his biggest mistake he's ever made but something made him look at the carnage he caused. All the Blanks were silhouettes with a red X on their faces as well. Then Asta's friends came into his view. They were all silhouettes with a big red X on their faces as well. Asta, realizing what was going, tried to take control of his devil as he made his way over to Noelle. His demon picked her up and began to absorb what magic she had left in her and felt something else drain from her. Her voice suddenly pierced through his ears as he heard her say "Asta, please stop this!" It was something about those words that allowed him to gain control again and drop her as a great pain came from all around his body, causing him to scream and wake up.

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Noelle and Finral awoke to hear Asta screaming on his bed, his body thrashing around as if he was possessed. His eyes were pitch-black as he dug his fingers into the bed. A few magic knights from outside barged in and tried to restrain him but nothing was working. They left to go get another doctor who might be able to stop him. Noelle yelled at Asta "Asta, stop, you're just dreaming," but it didn't appear to work. She got out of her bed and slowly walked over to Asta and fell on her knees next to his bed and covered her ears as his screams were getting increasingly louder. She held his hand and screamed at him "Asta, please wake up," but it didn't help. She didn't want to hit him in fear of him doing something unknowingly to her while sleeping. She said the words she told him in the cave in a last-ditch effort to snap him out of it. "Asta, please stop this, she screamed at him. He arched his back for the last time as he fell onto his back and woke up, his eye's finally returning to normal. She hugged him as he tried to make sense of what happened as the doctor came into the room. "What the hell happened to him?" the doctor had asked them both. They both explained what had happened to their best abilities to the doctor. "After I told him to stop, he snapped out of it. He did the same thing earlier when he lost control earlier." The doctor looked through notes that he had taken down and come to a conclusion that stunned them both. "Noelle, from the way it sounds, Asta only snaps out of his episodes when he hears you tell him to." They both were confused and asked the doctor what they meant. "Basically, you're an anchor that brings Asta back to reality and snaps him out of his episodes. I think you two should be around each other at all times to stop any potential episodes that he may have.” Hearing that caused both of them blushed at hearing that, Noelle a lot more than Asta, as the doctor made Noelle switch beds next to Asta before either of them could object. The doctor left, leaving them both alone as they looked at each other, not sure what to say to each other. Finral fell back asleep a while ago, so it was only Asta and Noelle up as they sat across from each other, not meeting each other's gaze.

Asta was the one to finally break the tension as he asked Noelle "How long have you loved me," with a deep blush on his face. Noelle became increasingly flustered as she wasn't expecting either of them to say anything. "U-um, well, I guess I've loved you ever since I met you, to be honest. I thought it was just a little crush at first, but as we got older, I realized that I loved you. It wasn't until after your brother passed away that I realized it, and I didn't want to tell you because of how much emotional pain you were in. I thought it would be best if I didn't tell you because of that. I know when we were younger, I used to hit you because I didn't want to admit that I loved a commoner. I hate that I did that because I thought any interest that you had in me disappeared long ago as I kept hurting you. I'm sorry that I did that, I was being very immature because I was prideful of my status as a royal," she explained to Asta in a quiet voice as not to wake up anyone, as she got increasingly flustered as she went on. "Asta, do you have any feelings for me," she asked in a sheepish voice to him. "W-well, I honestly don't know if I did before, but the past few weeks, if I'm being completely honest. I started to notice you a little more. I don't know when I started to feel that way, but I must've been confusing those feelings for something else. I only started to realize when Vanessa asked that question about if I loved anyone. I was going to apologize for my answer yesterday but you were asleep when I went over to your room. I guess what I'm trying to say is, yes, I do have feelings for you, Noelle," he replied as a blush overtook his face. They both sat in silence until Asta walked over to Noelle's bed and sat next to her. They both looked at each other and leaned in for a kiss, as they both blushed more than they ever had before, embracing each other for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, they stopped and looked at each other as Noelle said "I love you, Asta." Asta held her as he said, "I love you too, Noelle." as they fell asleep in each other's embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say this time other than I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I tried to make this chapter have a happier ending after what happened at the end of the last one, and I think I did well. I took a break writing this weekend to celebrate Halloween by myself. I think I finally have a consistent schedule for this series. Basically, expect a chapter every other day throughout a week and maybe two chapters on weekends. When this series hits 10 chapters, I plan on taking a break for about a week or two and expect the same thing to happen when I (hopefully) get to chapter 20. With the way I want to tell this story, I expect that it might be around 30-40 chapters now, instead of my projected 20-30 chapters, but again, this series could be finished later or earlier than I planned. That's all I have to say, have a good day/night.


	6. Lost Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slightly late chapter, I've been having some internet problems the past few days.

"Hey, Asta, get up, I want Dr. Owen to check on my injury," Noelle said to Asta in a quiet voice, trying not to wake up anyone else in the infirmary. Noelle had been up for a few minutes now and woke up in Asta's arms. She thought back to last night and how Asta confessed to her last night and they fell asleep in the same bed. Noelle thought it was a wonderful dream but was happy to see that it wasn't. She tried to slip out of his arms to see if Dr. Owen could check on her but Asta grabbed her in his arms tighter now, bringing her closer to him, and causing her to get even more embarrassed. She knew why she was still embarrassed, as he had only confessed to her last night, she just hadn't been able to comprehend it just yet. As Asta's eyes began to open, Noelle saw his eyes glow brighter than they ever had before, made her feel very happy and she smiled at that. Asta was graced to see Noelle's smile first thing as he woke up. "Hey beautiful, did you sleep well?" he asked Noelle, trying to sound flirty. It appeared to work as she blushed slightly and told him "You helped me sleep better, so yes." Asta's heart pounded a little faster as he became at a loss for words, only able to blush even more and bring her in even closer to him. They looked into their eyes and leaned in to kiss again as their lips met again. Their lips departed as they stared lovingly into their eyes, both of them hoping this moment would never end. It only ended once they decided they should get Noelle's injury checked out again.

"How's your injury doing, do you think you can walk to his office," Asta had asked her. "No, my back still hurts pretty bad. My injury feels the same as it did yesterday, so I don't think it's gotten any worse," she said as she tried to stand but had to be caught by Asta. "I'll just carry you there, you probably shouldn't walk until we can get you healed up," Asta said as he picked her up in a bridal position again as they made his way to the doctor's office. The sun had already been up for a while, so they assumed that Dr. Owen was up by now. Just like they had assumed, he was up and was about to check on them before Asta and Noelle showed up. Dr. Owen had checked on Noelle first, seeing if her injury had gotten better. Just as he had tried yesterday, the wound didn't heal. He quickly, and successfully tried to heal Asta and asked him if his anti-magic could stop whatever was making it so Noelle's wound wouldn't heal. He used one of his swords on her back without hurting her and it seemed to help her significantly. Dr. Owen tried again to heal her and it seemed to be working great, and it only left a scar on her where the blade stabbed her. "I think that's the best I can do, the rest will have to heal on its own. You should be able to walk without any pain but you may feel a sting from time to time. I'll go check on the others and get back to you soon," Dr. Owen said as he left in a hurry, leaving the two alone again. 

The two started having a conversation about what happened last night. Asta said that he couldn't remember anything in his dream, and the only thing he remembered was Noelle's voice brought him out of it. "It looked like I was possessed? I must have had a terrible nightmare for that to happen," he said as he nervously chuckled. "I'm really sorry about what happened in the cave yesterday. I hope it never happens again but if it does, I know I can count on you to bring me out of that state. I just can't say how sorry I am that I almost hurt you yesterday," Asta said to Noelle, a hint of regret and sadness in his voice. "I don't know how awful it would be to lose control, but I promise you that I'll help you as best I can. Oh, we should probably rearrange our rooms so I'm next to yours. Do you think you can talk to Henry about it when we get back?" Noelle had asked. Before Asta said anything, Gauche broke into the room, shouting at them. "Get over here, Vanessa's awake!" he yelled as fast as he could before running back. Asta and Noelle were close behind, Asta holding her hand so she could keep up with him because of her injury. Sure enough, when they got there, they saw Vanessa up and awake, Dr. Owen checking out her head. The rest of the Black Bulls were in there as well, all of them wanting to check up on their injured friends as soon as possible. Even Finral managed to up and see her by getting help from Luck and Zora to stand up. "Now Vanessa, it's common for people who have suffered a head injury to have some memory loss. Do you think you can try to name anyone in this room with no help from them?" Dr. Owen explained to her. She nodded and began looking at everyone but couldn't produce anyone's name. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember any of these people. The last thing I remember was being trapped in a cage by someone but that's it." Vanessa said in a confused way.

The entire atmosphere of the room changed when she said that. Everyone had a look of surprise on their face, except for Finral, who looked absolutely devastated. Dr. Owen sighed and explained what Vanessa's condition currently was to them. "It appears that she has severe amnesia. Look, I'm going to be completely honest with you all here. There's a good chance that she may not ever gain her memory back. It appears the spell she was hit with was a mix of dark magic and memory magic and as far as I know, no one who has lost their entire memory ever gained it back again. I'm not saying that she won't ever gain it back, but it's pretty unlikely." Everyone in the room fell silent, processing what they've been told. Dr. Owen asked Asta if he could remove the spell on Finral's legs that caused it not to heal properly as Finral burst into tears. The woman he loved didn't even know who he was right now, and it hurt him greatly that this had happened to her. "I know this is painful for you but I would like to heal your injuries quickly please," Dr. Owen asked him. Finral wiped tears off of his face and looked at Dr. Owen and gave a slight nod as Asta gently poked his sword at Finral's legs and removed the spell stopping him from getting healed. "Now you're probably going to have trouble walking for a few months. There was still some nerve damage I couldn't repair. You should eventually gain feeling back in your legs in about 2 to 3 weeks, but because of how serious your injury was, you may never have feeling in parts of your legs again. Come see me if your condition doesn't improve. I'll be back in a minute, I need to check on Magna," he said as he went to the other side of the room.

Finral walked with a little difficulty to Vanessa's bed and reintroduced himself again to her. "Hey, my name is Finral Roulacase. I'm on the same magic knight squad as you are, although I guess you don't know what that is anymore. I'm going to do my best to get your memories back," he said sheepishly to her. Everyone else reintroduced themselves to her, as she just stared in confusion about them. "I'm Luck, and over there is my friend Magna. He's sleeping right now but I'm going to fight him as soon as he wakes up!" Luck said in excitement. "He's in a coma, so I don't know when he's getting up, but I'll be waiting for when he does!" Noelle, Asta, and Finral looked over at Luck with surprise on their faces. "Magna's in a coma?" is all Asta could say as the atmosphere of the room changed yet again for the uninformed Black Bulls members as Gauche quickly explained what happened. "Because of his injury, they had to put him in a coma. One of Dr. Owen's spells is allowing him to breathe right now. He had extensive damage to his lungs that was too much for the best doctors in the kingdom to fix. He was lucky to have Grey put a protector around him, otherwise, he might not be here anymore. Captain Yami told us his condition last night after we got back," he said in a worried tone.

The entire room went silent for what felt like an eternity until Asta walked over to the wall and punched it in anger, putting an enormous hole into the wall. "Damn it, why couldn't I help them when I had the chance? Fucking hell, everything's gone to hell ever since that attack. I wish everything would go back to what it was, but that only happens in fairy tales." he screamed to no one. Noelle quickly rushed to his side and told him "Asta, there's nothing you could have done. It's not your fault what happened to them. You can't blame yourself for everything that happened yesterday, okay?" she said in an attempt to calm him down. Asta looked behind him at his teammates staring at him as Vanessa told him, "Look, Asta, was it? I could've been dead right now if it weren't for you. I don't know what you did but you saved me, that's all that matters to me. I'm sure that guy over there would say the same thing if he could," she said to him. Asta calmed down after hearing that although he was still shaking a bit. "You're right. I can't blame myself for what happened, but in my mind, I'm the only person I can blame," Asta said as he turned around to face his teammates. They all assured him that it wasn't his fault as Vanessa grabbed her head in pain.

"Vanessa, what's wrong? Do I need to get a doctor?" Finral asked worriedly thinking something really bad was happening to her. "No, my injury must've affected me for a second, but I'm fine," she reassured Finral. "I should probably rest for now. Can one of you ask the doctor if I can leave today?" Vanessa asked them. Grey nodded and left quickly to find Dr. Owen as Vanessa asked everyone some more questions about them. Some of them were basic questions, like what the name of their magic knight squad was, who was their captain, and if there were any more members besides them. "What's the deal with you two? You've been really close to him ever since you got here. Are you two a couple like the brown and blue-haired ones are or am I misreading something?" she asked Asta and Noelle. Asta, being oblivious, replied, "Yeah, since last night actually." All eyes were on the two as Asta realized what he had just said. Both of them felt embarrassment radiate off each other. Before they could get asked many questions, Grey entered the room and told them, "Vanessa can come back today if she feels like it." Vanessa got out of bed immediately and said, "Good, I don't think I could handle another day here. Besides, I should try to bring my memory back as soon as possible by surrounding myself with familiar things." Asta and Noelle breathed a sigh of relief before heading out with everyone else to go back to their hideout.

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Nighttime swiftly approached as the Black Bulls spent the entire day doing their best to reintroduce Vanessa to anything that felt familiar to her, although it was in vain as she still remembered nothing. The Black Bulls even told her everything they knew about her, the most of which came from Finral, although it still did nothing either. The first thing Asta did when they got back was asking Henry to put Noelle's room and his room next to each other. He quickly explained what the doctor had told him, saying Noelle brought him out of his episodes and it would be best to have their rooms close to each other in case she needs to take him out of it. Henry didn't question it, although he "accidentally" merged their rooms slightly together. Both of their beds were so close to each other that it might've been better off getting one big one, and that made the two of them feel really nervous. "So, um, I guess we get to sleep next to each other now, huh," Asta nervously said, trying to relieve the tension between them. " _We slept next to each other last night. Why is it so awkward now?_ " he thought as he looked over to Noelle. She was in a state of panic and froze in a trance-like state.

Asta snapped her out of her trance by touching her on her shoulder and bringing her back to reality. "Oh, sorry. I didn't expect you to ask Henry to put our beds together. I didn't even know he could do that actually," she said as Asta realized Henry's "mistake" was on purpose. He silently cursed and thanked him for this and looked over at Noelle to make up an excuse. He explained that the walls might be too thick for her to him through and it would be better if they slept in the same room. Noelle didn't believe a word of it and thought that Asta just wanted to be next to his girlfriend at night. Asta noticed this and told her exactly what he said to Henry. "Okay, I told Henry to put our rooms next to each other but I never told him to put our beds together. I can have him change it back if you want," Asta explained. "It's okay, I don't mind sleeping next to my boyfriend," she said, before blushing a little at calling Asta her boyfriend. Asta blushed and smiled at hearing himself be called Noelle's boyfriend, thinking it sounded natural like she had been calling him that for a while, even though it was the first time she had. "I guess I don't mind sleeping next to my girlfriend either," Asta replied. Feeling an increasing embarrassment build between them, they both decided that they should just go to sleep and try sleeping next to each other to see how they like it. After 45 uncomfortable minutes, Asta looked to his side to see if Noelle had fallen asleep yet and to his surprise, she was looking at him. "Can't sleep, Asta? I can't blame you, this is the first time I've been able to actually think about what's been going on in a long time." Asta sighed and looked back to the roof of their room. "Yeah, it's the first time I've been able to think about some things in a while as well. I'm afraid that I'll have those nightmares again and have another episode. We've been in a relationship for about a day now but I have no idea how to actually have a healthy relationship with you, and I just feel so many changes are happening in our lives at once and I'm a little scared that everything we have could be taken away from us." Noelle grabbed Asta's hand and reassured him of his fears. "Asta, don't worry, I'm sure we can have a great healthy relationship. Don't worry about your nightmares either, you heard what the doctor said, I'm your anchor that brings you out of your episodes if you have one. I know you're scared about a lot of things, I'm scared of a lot of things too. I feel like I've been dreaming and I'm worried I'm going to wake up and everything that's happened will just disappear."

Asta and Noelle had talked for over an hour until they both fell asleep. They had smiles on their faces still as they had fell asleep holding their hands, telling each other that they loved each other. Noelle had actually slept pretty well until Asta started tossing around in his sleep. He was sweating very hard and had a look of pain on his face. Noelle quickly woke him up before it got too bad. "Asta, wake up, you're having a nightmare," she said as she gently shook him. Asta bolted up, panting very hard, and some tears going down his face as Noelle comforted him again. "It's okay Asta, you were just having a nightmare," she said to him. He calmed down quite a bit at hearing her voice, and almost completely stopped crying. "I'm sorry Noelle. I didn't think this would happen tonight. I still don't remember what happened, I just heard your voice again and woke up. I'm sorry," he apologized to her. "You don't need to apologize for that, I know it's going to happen a lot, but I'm with you now, and I can help you, even if it's just a little bit. Let's try to get back to sleep and we can try to figure out something tomorrow, alright? Love you, Asta, goodnight." she said to him. Asta looked back at Noelle and kissed her on the cheek and told her "Love you too, Noelle. Goodnight." They both faced each other and fell back asleep smiling at each other, while something was digging in the back of Asta's mind, trying to get to him but he didn't let it and took it out of his mind for the rest of the night as he drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thought about having things be a little happier for some of the characters. Don't worry about Magna and Vanessa, I got things planned for both of them. I'm thinking about having some of the other Black Bulls have more important roles in the next few chapters, although I will try to focus on the main story. I've also decided that I'm just going to do a --- instead of doing the bold letters thing, I did for a few chapters unless I feel I need to. Expect a slight delay in the next chapter, as my internet has been pretty bad the past week. That's all, have a good day/night.


	7. Sparks Fly

Several months had passed since an attack on the Black Bulls left half of their members injured. October had come, and everyone could feel a chill begin to form in the air as things remained unchanged. Vanessa hadn't remembered anything ever since she came back, and Magna's condition had only slightly improved. Finral had spent the past months trying to help her, but it seemed like it was all in vain. Luck tried his best to visit Magna whenever he could on days off, but Blank attacks had been ramping up since the base near Hage Village was found. Asta almost had to stand trial for murder, but the magical council let him off easy. The Black Bulls weren't sure if it was because a few members of the council were their old friends, or the current Wizard King, Fuegoleon, had the charges acquitted, but they were glad nothing worse came of it. Noelle was currently searching for a birthday present for her boyfriend, Asta, as his birthday was just a few days away. She had been searching for a present for him for several weeks now, but she couldn't find anything that she assumed he would want. Noelle knew that Asta would appreciate any present she got for him, but she felt like whenever she found something that she could find something better for him. Part of her wanted to purchase Asta a collection of gifts and see what he likes, but then that would turn into Grey's last birthday when Gauche bought out several stores for her.

As Noelle strolled throughout the Royal Capital, window shopping in a last-ditch attempt to find something for Asta, she stumbled upon a neat little gift shop buried among a few larger shops with overpriced and budget items. Noelle wandered into the store, which was run by a nice old couple, and started scanning the tables and shelves full of used and unusual items. She didn't see anything in particular that caught her eye as she looked over an assortment of rings and jewels until she saw something very familiar to her. A blue jewel with a gold-colored cross and four-pointed stars in each corner sat on display next to a few golden rings. " _This looks an awful lot like the necklace Yuno used to have,_ " Nolle thought to herself. She remembered that Asta and Yuno shared a birthday, or more specifically, the day they were left at the church. She had no idea what happened to Yuno's old necklace, she had just assumed that Asta had it, but she wasn't sure of that. The one on display wasn't exactly like Yuno's, as it looked newer and more polished, but she was almost sure it was the real thing when she first saw it. Noelle became slightly conflicted at the sight of the necklace, as this could be the last thing she could get for Asta, but it could make him incredibly uncomfortable that she got something that reminded him of his brother. Noelle decided to take her chances and purchased the jewel along with a chain so Asta could hang it around his neck, and made her back to the base.

The whole way back, Noelle was beginning to regret her purchase, thinking that Asta would get upset with her, but she convinced herself that she made the right purchase. Noelle arrived back at the same time as Luck, who had just come back from visiting Magna. It honestly made some of the members a little upset seeing Luck visit Magna. He would stay for hours at a time, telling him about what everyone was up to and waiting for him to wake up. A few of them thought that this was his way of dealing with the situation, but it still made them upset for him. He never wanted to talk to anyone about it and would usually ignore anyone who would come with him. Noelle had noticed that his eyes were a little red and puffy, showing that he had been crying a little bit. Noelle couldn't blame him, as anyone could tell how it was hard on Luck to see his friend in such a weakened state. Noelle noticed and decided to talk to Luck about it. ”Hey Luck, are you okay? We’re all worried about you, and we want to know if you’re okay,” Noelle questioned Luck. He turned to face Noelle and told her in his cheery voice, ”Yeah, I’m okay. I just like to see the guy I love.”

Noelle was slightly taken aback at what Luck had just told her. It never occurred to her that Luck might have feelings for Magna, although it made some sense, given he loved to taunt Magna a lot. ”Oh, I never knew you felt that way about him,” Noelle replied. She stayed quiet and tried not to say something that could offend him. ”Yeah, not many people know either. You’re the first person I’ve told. I think I started growing feelings for him when I first joined. There was something about him that caught my attention, although I confused those feelings for something else for the longest time. I grew up being taught that having feelings for guys was wrong but I never understood why I was supposed to think like that. I like to tease him because I have no idea how to convey my feelings to him. The only thing that's stopping me is because I know a lot of people don’t like people like me, so I keep it a secret,” Luck replied. Noelle knew what he was talking about, as she, unfortunately, knew a lot of people who thought that way about people like Luck. She never understood why those people thought that way, she always thought that if two people love each other, regardless of gender or class, they should be treated like everyone else. Noelle looked at Luck and told him, ”I know people can be like that, but I know everyone here would accept you. I understand that you’re probably scared to tell people, but we'll support you no matter what. I know I do.” Luck looked at Noelle with a little surprise and teared up a little as he walked over to Noelle to hug her. ”Thank you for accepting me,” he replied as tears fell from his face. Noelle hugged him back as she felt his tears fall onto her robe.

Noelle and Luck walked through the doors of their base as they saw Finral passed out at a table. Finral had been using all of his free time trying to get Vanessa's memory back and, as a result, became very tired looking for things that might jog her memory. It became very tiring for him as he brought her to places that she visited frequently, introduced her to people she knew, and even trying to relive battles that had happened long ago. Vanessa greatly appreciated everything Finral was trying to do to help her, but she felt awful that everything he tried didn't work. Everyone else tried to help Vanessa as well, but Finral had worked the hardest of them, trying to get back the woman he loved. He not only wanted to get her love for him back, but he also wanted her to go back to the person she was. He didn't care if Vanessa never remembered her love for him, he just wanted her to be the person she used to be. Vanessa didn't feel like the person she used to be either. She felt like a copy of herself with key components missing and wanted to gain those parts of herself back. 

Gauche and Grey were nowhere to be found, most likely on a date, Charmy and Gordon were talking about something, most likely food, and Asta and Henry were speaking to each other above them all. Asta hadn't been having as many nightmares often, although they still happened occasionally. Their sleeping arrangement, while a little uncomfortable at first, they got used to pretty quickly and don’t mind anymore, deciding to keep it the way it is. Asta did talk to Henry about it, explaining what he meant by having their rooms next to each other, although he told him not to change it back, as they liked it the way it was now. Zora and Secre had been avoiding each other for some reason, most likely Zora had said something that had offended her, Yami was out on a date with Charlotte, his girlfriend, and would be out for the rest of the night, and Vanessa put a blanket on Finral and went back to her room. It was weird how many things had changed while also how many things stayed the same. Everyone knew it but nobody had ever acknowledged it, preferring to pretend it a few slight changes rather than a big one. Noelle headed back to her and Asta’s shared room and hid her gift in a spot she knew he wouldn’t look and went back to the commons area, hoping to talk to Luck a little more. When she did go to the commons area, she saw Luck and Asta fighting outside. She left the two to do their thing and went back to their room to sleep. ” _I hope Asta likes my present,”_ Noelle thought as she drifted to sleep.

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October 4th had finally come and Noelle was still incredibly nervous about the present she had bought. Asta was greeted by Noelle's beautiful face and by a few of the other members wishing him a happy birthday. He was happy, although he felt like something was missing. Although he couldn't, or didn't want to figure it out, he went through his day like normal, getting a few gifts from Grey, Gauche, and Luck. Vanessa and Finral were nowhere to be seen for most of the day, and it was the same with Zora and Secre. Asta didn't mind that some of his friends weren't showing themselves, as Asta never thought of his birthday as a big deal. Noelle was acting a little strange and Asta immediately took notice of this. "Hey Noelle, is something wrong?" Asta questioned her. Noelle wasn't sure what to say when Gauche came in with a bunch of fireworks. "Since the fireworks festival got canceled, we thought we'd hold one of our own," he announced to everyone. Noelle breathed a sigh of relief and joined the rest of the Black Bulls outside.

Before Noelle joined everyone else, she quickly ran back to her and Asta's room to get his present, had a quick panic attack and ran outside. When she got outside, she saw Asta inviting her over to sit next to him, and she ran over to where he was sitting. Gauche was struggling to light up the fireworks, so Noelle took the opportunity to give Asta her present. "Hey, Asta, I have a present to give to you," she said in a quiet, almost whisper-like voice. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a little bag with the jewel and chain inside. Asta took it and looked inside as shock appeared on his face. "I remembered that today would've been Yuno's birthday too, and I don't know if you have his necklace," Noelle said in a quiet tone. She couldn't even look at Asta's face, afraid of how he would react. Suddenly, a group of fireworks went off, causing a loud boom that could be heard and seen for miles. Noelle looked up at Asta's face and saw a smile and some tears on his face. "I can't thank you enough for this Noelle. I don't know what happened to his necklace but I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time. I know that Yuno's birthday would be today as well, but I felt that if I recognized this day as our birthday, I feel like he would truly be gone. I know it's selfish of me to think like that, but I don't know if I'll ever be over Yuno's death, but this feels like a first step to getting over it," he said as put the necklace on. Noelle became extremely relieved, and could finally look him in his eyes. Asta and Noelle leaned in for a kiss as another group of fireworks shot off and illuminated them all in a white and purple glow as the night sky turned back to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say here again but to say thank you so much for reading this. I’m nowhere close to the end of the story but I feel like the end of this is almost here. I hope I wrote Luck coming out in a good way. I thought that if he were to come out, he would say it casually while also a little scared at what people would think and would only say it to someone he trusts. Thanks for reading this chapter, the next one should be out tomorrow or Monday. 
> 
> BTW, I’ll say this just to clear things up in case anyone asks. This story is always going to focus on Asta x Noelle, I just feel I need to clear that up. Something like Gauche x Grey and Vanessa x Finral are background stories that are there going to have some development, but Asta x Noelle will always be the heart and soul of this series. Magna x Luck wasn’t something I felt was integral to the plot but I changed my mind as I felt I should have a reason that Luck visits Magna while he’s in a coma so often. It was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, although I’m glad I did as Luck is one of my favorites characters. I did say I have big plans for Magna and Vanessa, and Magna x Luck turned into part of that plan for Magna. If you don’t like things like that, I’m fine with that, but I’m going to the story the way I want to. I’m not saying everyone won’t like it, but I know some people will probably leave homophobic comments, but I won’t let them get to me if I do see a few. That’s all for my quick mini-rant.


	8. Freaking Out

The chill November air radiated throughout the kingdom in an extremely unusual way. While it wasn't uncommon for it to get somewhat chilly in November, it was almost freezing with heavy snowfall all around the kingdom. It didn't sit right with people and made them concerned it was something to do with the Blanks, but the magical council reassured everyone that it was just an unusually early snowstorm. Tons of people didn't believe it, and many planned to stay in their homes for the coming months. Asta, who was always excited to see snow, didn't really care what people were saying and tried to appreciate everything. His nightmares were slowly starting to come back to him, although he chalked them up to stress and other things. He had been looking for a present for Noelle's birthday, but he couldn't decide what to get her. Noelle got him a special gift for his birthday, and he knew that he should give her a unique present too, but he didn't know what to get her. He couldn't find a gift that showed how he felt about her, although he wasn't sure if he would find a gift that could convey how he felt. 

Besides that, Vanessa was making great progress in getting her memory back. She started to remember certain things about some people that they didn't tell her, like her sisterly bond with Noelle and her trust and appreciation in Asta. Although it wasn't much, the Black Bulls were very proud of her progress and had a small celebration for her. Finral had finally felt that their work was paying off, although he had been losing sleep and sometimes neglected to eat somedays, finally started to get back to his regular self as well. Magna's condition was greatly improving, and the doctors in charge of watching him say that he should wake up any day now. Everyone was extremely relieved to hear that, as a few months back, his condition got slightly worse out of nowhere, but he, thankfully, got better at an incredibly fast rate. Everyone, especially Luck, hoped that he would be able to back at the base by the start of next month. Noelle and Luck developed a sibling-like bond the past month for reasons that the two hadn't shared just yet. Luck told Noelle something very personal to him and the two have grown closer because of that. Noelle made a promise to Luck not to tell anyone what he had told her and would only let Luck tell people himself when he felt comfortable. It made people happy to see Luck spending time with someone else, as when he wasn't visiting Magna, he would stay in his room, or, while on missions, would gon on ahead and try to fight any Blanks he found. Luck held a personal grudge against them for what they did to Magna and promised himself that he would beat them all himself if he had to. Now Luck was spending time outside his room and started to work together with people on missions. It was honestly a little weird to think that Noelle talking to him once could have such a huge impact on him, and they were happy for him.

Asta was sprawled outside in the fluffy snow, thinking hard about what to get Noelle. " _Should I make her something? If I make her something, I could actually show her how I feel about her. or something that would mean something to her like the necklace she got me,_ " Asta thought. He thought about things he liked about her, which wasn't difficult given he liked a lot about her. Actually, he liked everything about her. He couldn't think about something about her that he didn't like but didn't know how he could accurately find or make a gift that showed how he liked those things about her. It frustrated him that he couldn't think of a gift, but he didn't want to give up on this. They've only been dating for a few months but they both became the most important people in their lives, and he wanted to show her that. Just then, a huge snowball hit Asta in the face, making him momentarily forget about what he was thinking. He wiped off the from his face and looked up to see Zora standing a few feet away, chuckling to himself. "What the hell are you doing out here, it's freezing," Zora asked. "I'm thinking about what to get Noelle for her birthday. I can't find anything that shows how I feel about her," Asta said as he laid back down in the snow. Zora threw another snowball at Asta's face as he told him, "Tell her how you feel? Asta, you two are already dating, I think she knows how you feel about her." Asta wiped the snow off of his face and told Zora, "I know that, but she got me a special gift for me that means so much to me and I want to do the same for her. I want to get her something that really shows how I feel about her." Zora walked over to where Asta laid, dropped a huge snowball on his head, and told him, "Get a ring and marry her then, that's the only thing you can do." Zora swore that he could see Asta's blush through the snow as he sat up. The idea of marriage never really crossed his mind, as they had only started dating a few months ago, but Zora's words put things into perspective for Asta. It would truly show Asta felt about her and would be a special thing for both of them.

Asta wasn't exactly sure if he was being serious or not and responded to Zora by saying, "That's a good one Zora." Zora looked Asta in the eyes and told him, "I'm not joking. I can tell how much you love that girl and how much she loves you. If she means so much to you that you can't even put how much you love her into words, then maybe a grand gesture like proposing to her will show both of you how much you love each other." Asta was surprised at Zora's words, as he always joked around with him, rarely ever being serious around anyone. Asta thanked Zora and headed off into one of the towns to get some rings made for him and Noelle.

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Noelle had been talking with Luck about the news that Magna should wake up soon, and needless to say, Luck couldn't be happier. He had been the first to hear from the doctors and immediately rushed back to tell them. Noelle had noticed that Luck's smile looked slightly different like he wasn't forcing it as much. Noelle hadn't seen Asta since this morning, so she had spent most of her day talking with Luck. He had been speaking to Noelle about when he should tell everyone how he felt about Magna, slightly worried about their reaction to it. "What if they hate me, what if they don't treat me the same, what if they want to kick me out?" were some of the questions Luck had. Noelle reassured his fears but it still didn't stop Luck from shaking slightly. Noelle couldn't even imagine how scared he must be to tell anyone, but she did her best comfort him. "Luck, I know everyone here pretty well, and I know that they won't look at you any different, or hate you, or want to kick you out. You'll be the same person to them as you were before you told them," Noelle told Luck. It made her feel bad for him as she had never seen Luck in a state like this before. Hearing Noelle's words, Luck stopped shaking and told Noelle, "I've made up my mind. I'll tell them later today." Noelle didn't expect Luck to want to tell people so soon, but she knew Luck was ready. "Okay Luck. I'll be with you the entire time. Come get me when you're ready okay?" Noelle told Luck. He nodded and went back to his room to mentally prepare himself for tonight.

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Asta had spent his entire day looking for a place that made wedding rings and one who could make it in a few days. He provided the payment in advance so they could finish them as fast as possible, which would take 12 days to make, and finish on Noelle's birthday. Magic could create many things but it couldn't create a wedding ring for Asta's fiancee fast enough. He was excited and very nervous, but he knew he had to hide it so he didn't ruin his surprise. As Asta walked into the base, he saw Zora finally talking to Secre again, Finral conversing with Vanessa, and Grey and Gauche were taking a nap next to each other. Asta sat down at a table by himself as he began to feel slightly tired from running around all day. Before he knew it, Asta fell asleep for about an hour before being woken up by Noelle telling him, "Hey Asta, get up. Luck has something very important to tell us." Asta got out of the chair he was sitting in and joined the rest of his friends to hear what Luck had to tell them. 

Noelle was standing next to Luck, patting him on the back and whispering something to him that the rest of them couldn't hear. Luck took a deep breath, before stepping up and making his announcement. "I've wanted to tell all of you this for a while, but I was scared to. I think I was scared of how you'd react to it, but I'm ready to tell you all. I'm gay, and I love Magna," Luck said. There was an uncomfortable silence as Luck looked down at the floor, visibly shaking as he waited for everyone's response. Asta and Vanessa were the first ones to step forward. Luck looked up at them as Asta broke the silence by telling him, "I'm proud of you Luck. I can tell how hard that was for you, and I'm proud that you were able to tell us that." Vanessa hugged Luck and told him, "Thanks for telling us, kid. I hope you can tell that guy how you feel soon." The rest of the Black Bulls eventually told Luck how proud they were that he was able to say that to them and that they hope he can tell Magna how he feels. While they were doing that, Asta went up to Noelle and asked her, "Is that why you and Luck have been hanging out so much? If so, I'm glad you were able to help him out." Noelle told Asta what she felt comfortable saying to him as she didn't want to say anything Luck might've been uncomfortable. The rest of the night went on the same as usual, only a few things different until Asta and Noelle went to sleep. Asta could barely sleep, as he kept thinking about the wedding rings he asked to be made. Asta wasn't sure if he was going too fast in their relationship by wanting to ask her to get married but he couldn't think of any other way to say how much he loves her. He didn't fall asleep until Noelle grabbed his hand in her sleep, and he finally knew that he made the right decision getting those rings made.

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It was finally Noelle's birthday and Asta couldn't feel more excited and nervous. Asta had snuck out very early in the morning to get the rings and prepare himself to propose. As soon as he left the base, he heard a familiar voice say to him, "Congratulations Asta." He looked to her left to see Yuno's spirit again, except he looked a little different. His arm was a bright green and the part where he was cut in half was green as well. Asta hadn't seen Yuno's ghost ever since he gave him his grimoire back, but it still felt like he had talked to him yesterday. "Hey Yuno, why are you back this time?" Asta questioned. He walked closer to Asta as he said, "I just wanted to congratulate you on proposing to your girlfriend. I know you're not doing it until later, but I won't be there to see you do it. The real reason I'm here is to say I'm proud that you began working towards your dream again and I'm proud you starting to get over my death. I see that you have a jewel that's like the one I used to have. I don't know what happened to it, but I'm glad that you're moving on in some way." There was an uncomfortable silence between them as Yuno said, "This is probably the last time you'll ever see me. If I saw up for no reason then you're never going to be able to get over my death. I wanted to say goodbye to you one last time." Asta felt a growing sadness inside him as he had to quickly come to terms with his brother being gone for good. "Oh. Well, I guess this is goodbye then," Asta said as he looked at his brother. "It's okay to cry, Asta. I know this is hard for you," Yuno said. Asta didn't hold in his emotions this time and hugged Yuno as he shed a few tears as he said, "Goodbye, Yuno." YUno hugged him back as he said, "Goodbye, Asta." Asta looked away as Yuno disappeared again, and made his way to go get the wedding rings.

Asta got their right when they opened as the person making the rings said he had to make the finishing touches on them. He spent an hour waiting inside as he finally got his rings and a box for the one he was going to give Noelle. Asta got back to the base just around the time everyone was getting up, and acted as he had just gotten up as well. The rest of the day, Asta was silently freaking out, counting the hours until he would propose to Noelle. He spent part of his day thinking about seeing Yuno for the last time and it made him a little upset. He didn't show it to anyone, wanting to throw on a brave face for himself. Luck left to see Magna, Finral and Vanessa went to one of her favorite bars, and Grey and Gauche went on a date. No one knew where Yami was, although they thought he probably slept over at Charlotte's place. Asta spent time with Noelle most of the day, trying not to act differently around her, but Noelle noticed that he seemed a little stressed out. "Hey, is something wrong Asta, you seem a little stressed?" Noelle asked. Asta lied and told her, "Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just a little tired." Noelle didn't buy it and brought Asta back to their room to ask him in private. "Asta, you've seemed a little stressed out the past few days, and I want to know what's wrong," she said. Asta, not expecting to have Noelle ask him about how he was asking, panicked and dropped the ring box he was hiding in his pocket. Noelle picked up the box and opened it up and saw the ring inside of it. She looked back at Asta and asked him, "Asta, is this a wedding ring?" Asta finally came clean and told Noelle what he planned to do. "I was going to propose to you today. I wanted to give you a special gift for your birthday as you did for me, but I didn't know what kind of gift to get you that showed you how I felt," he said to her. Asta didn't look her in her eyes, embarrassed at what he said to her. Noelle walked in front of him, and kissed him on his lips as she said, "I do." Asta, slightly confused by what she meant, asked her, "What do you mean?" Noelle looked him in the eyes and said, "I'll marry you, Asta." Asta, filled with happiness, kissed Noelle back and picked her up in a bridal position, and swung her around. Both of them fell onto their bed and lay next to each other, as they felt frozen in time and hoped this moment could never end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! We're almost to Chapter 10, and I can't wait for you to read what I have in store for the next two chapters. Remember, I'm taking a break for a week or two after chapter 10, and I'll have a chapter written when my break is over. I have a lot of things to write in the next two chapters so it's probably going to take me about 4-5 days to write chapter 9 and maybe a week to write chapter 10. I want to pack these chapters with tons of content so you have something to read while I'm on my break. I'll try to get back on my regular schedule after my break, although it might take a little while for me to get back on it. That's all for now, have a good day/night, and I'll see you at the next chapter.


	9. Heart and Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this took a little longer than I said it would, I accidentally deleted a big part of this chapter and had to rewrite it.

"Asta, wake up," Noelle quietly said. Asta slowly opened his eyes to see Noelle standing over him and squeezing his cheek. It was still early in the morning, barely over the horizon yet. Asta slowly got out of bed and got a good morning kiss from his fiancee, Noelle. "Morning beautiful," Asta said to Noelle. Asta had proposed to Noelle last month on her birthday, and she happily accepted it. They hadn't planned anything yet, but that was fine for them as they wanted to take their time to come up with a great wedding. They've only told the Black Bulls, a few of their friends throughout the kingdom, and a few members of their family. Noelle hadn't told any of her family yet, as she was worried that they would highly disapprove of her marrying a commoner. Asta reassured her that no matter what they told her, Asta would be there to defend her decision to marry him and would fight them if he had to. As much as Noelle wanted to laugh that off, she knew that Asta wouldn't be afraid to fight her family, as he has done so once a long time ago. The last time she met with her family, they had seemed more tolerant of Asta, but they still used their royal status as an excuse to put him down.

Anyway, the reason the two of them were up so early was Magna was finally going home today, and they all agreed to get him first thing in the morning. He woke up about a week after Noelle's birthday and had progressed through his physical therapy at an accelerated rate. He had lost very little muscle mass while in his coma, which may have contributed to his speedy recovery. Asta and Luck visited him yesterday when they heard the news. Everyone had visited him nearly every day since he woke up to inform him of everything that had occurred when he was in his coma. Well, almost everything. Asta hadn't told him he had proposed to Noelle just yet, for reasons Asta couldn't get himself to believe. Luck hadn't told Magna how he felt about him either, although he did tell Magna he was gay. Like the rest of the Black Bulls, Magna thanked Luck for telling him this and told him how proud he was of Luck to tell something so personal to them. It didn't seem like anything had happened to him, except for the scar he had on his chest. He liked it of course, as he told them that he thought it made him look more masculine. While Asta wasn't sure of that, Luck certainly agreed, although he was probably just glad to see Magna up and well. 

Vanessa, while improving greatly, hadn't covered her memory yet. She'd been doing her hardest to gain her memory back, but she hadn't been able to remember any more outside of how she used to tease Magna by calling him a virgin delinquent. Finral grew increasingly frustrated as he felt that she was very close to getting her memory back, although he knew it wasn't anyone's fault. Finral was a tired and sad person now, frequently digging into Vanessa's alcohol stashes and getting drunker than Vanessa ever had sometimes. He had frequent mood swings, became easily agitated and irritated, lost a lot of weight, and hardly slept anymore. Even Vanessa could barely get through to him anymore. He felt hopeless that he couldn't help Vanessa and felt like things wouldn't get better for them. He gave up on getting her to remember him and settled on her having fragmented parts of her memory back. A few members of the Black Bulls heard him crying at night a few times, showing he did want to help Vanessa but had no ideas left on how to help her. Thankfully, Finral noticed this himself and tried his hardest the past few weeks to better himself, but he has slipped up a few times.

Things had been going fine for everyone the past few weeks, except for Blank attacks. Their attacks had been ramping up for some time now, and they now attacked all parts of the kingdom. At first, they attack places of royal status and the magical council, but now they've been committing attacks wherever they could, no matter the social status of the people living there. It also appeared the number of Blank members had increased as well, as multiple attacks would happen simultaneously every day. Everyone became incredibly stressed out, constantly having to move quickly from place to place. The stress had affected the Black Bulls, mostly for Asta, Noelle, and Luck. Asta's nightmares had been happening every day now, some of them so bad that not even Noelle could bring him out of them. Noelle had become worried about her abilities as Asta's anchor, no matter how much Asta reassured her that it's okay. Luck had barely been able to visit Magna anymore, causing him to get easily distracted and almost injured, although he could see Magna every day as soon as he leaves the hospital. They tried not to let the stress get to them, but all showed it in different ways. Zora and Secre had stopped talking to each other yet along with and Grey and Gauche. They have barely seen each other since the attacks ramped up because Gauche had to be sent out on trips throughout the kingdom, along with most of the other magic knight squads. It was honestly a bit of a stretch, but a few of them hoped Magna returning would fix things, even slightly.

As Asta and Noelle walked into the commons area, they saw everyone else, except Gauche and Henry, who wouldn't get back for a few more days, ready to go get Magna. Finral opened a portal to Dr. Owens and walked over to Magna's room, where he had already gotten dressed in his usual attire. He was excited to finally go back home, although he wanted to get a few things before they headed back.

While they walked around one of the towns, Magna noticed how eerily how quiet it was, as people were scared to leave their houses since Blank attacks ramped up. There were still a few small groups of people out, but without them, it would be a ghost town. Heavy snow blanked the buildings around, as the Black Bulls went off course and decide to just look around the shops. While they were doing that, Zora grabbed Asta way from the group to talk to him in private. Asta wanted to talk to Zora about what was going on between him and Secre, so he happily followed him. Asta started getting concerned when Zora led him further away from everyone else. They noticed and called out to them. “Hey, Zora, where the hell are you going with Asta?” Magna shouted at them. Zora stopped walking and Asta backed away from him, sensing something was wrong with him. He used his ki to sense anything wrong with Zora, but he sensed nothing from him, like the Blanks in the... ”He’s a Blank!” Asta shouted at his friends. Asta brought out one of his anti-magic swords and swung at the Blanks posing as Zora. The Blank didn’t have any time to react as Asta hit them with the blunt end of his sword and hit them into the ground. As the sword hit them, a cloak appeared over the Blank, replacing Zora’s clothes. They walked over to the Blank to get a good look at the Blank and got disgusted at the person’s appearance, not because they were ugly, but because the person looked like a corpse.

They had rotting, pale green skin, with milky white eyeballs, and stunk terribly. Finral almost vomited at the scent of the guy, as the rest of them backed away at the sight of him. ”How is the guy still breathing, he should be dead, ” Finral asked. Magna got closer and got a better look at the guy. He gasped as he told them all, ”This guy is one of the old magic knight's captains that was killed a while back. At least, I thought he was.” Asta placed an anti-magic sword on the unconscious Blank as Magna explained all he knew about the guy. "He was the captain of a defunct squad that was the Black Bulls of their time. Their captain was executed for planning a terrorist plot with the Diamond Kingdom and disbanded the squad," Magna explained. "That doesn't explain why this guy is here, and why this guy is wearing a Blank robe," Noelle said. Asta took his sword off of the man and Luck picked him up by his robe with his Thunder God's Gloves. The Blank opened his eyes as Luck said in a terrifying voice, "Where's our friend?" as he threw the Blank into an abandoned building. Asta, Noelle, Magna, and Luck ran inside the building as Luck realized his mistake. Magna used his fire baseball bat to light the way as the group wandered inside. The creaks and groans from the wooden floor sent a chill down Asta's spine as they wandered through the building. Luck, instead of going ahead to find the guy, stuck with the group, making sure not to move away from Magna. Asta kicked opened a door and saw the Blank getting up from getting thrown. Noelle used Sea Dragon's Waterball to try and send the guy flying across the room, but he blocked the attack using dark magic. 

Luck used Thunder God's Boots to try and get behind the guy, but he smacked Luck into the wall, but he jumped off the wall and back into the Blank. Asta used some of Noelle's magic with his Demon-Dweller Sword to douse the man in water as Luck electrocuted him. Luck jumped off the Blank as he fell forward onto a plank of wood and got impaled onto a plank of wood through his chest, as the group stared on in horror. The silence ended as they heard thumping coming from above them, signaling someone else was in the building with them. Asta ran ahead upstairs with Noelle to see who was upstairs, seeing a light coming through the cracks of a door. Noelle got her grimoire ready as Asta kicked open the door to see someone lying on the floor. Asta and Noelle moved forward to see who it was, but Secre appeared in front of them behind the unconscious person. Asta used his ki to sense the person and Secre, and he felt Zora's ki coming from the person but he didn't sense anything coming from Secre. Asta quickly picked up Zora and brought him over to the doorway as he brought out his swords to defend himself from the Blank disguised Secre, who used a fire spell to attack them. Noelle used Sea Dragon's Roar on the fake Secre, who got flung out of the building.

Asta and Noelle quickly ran out of the building with Zora's unconscious body to see the fake Secre getting attacked by Luck and Magna. Finral used his spatial magic to transport Magna above the fake Secre as he brought down his fire baseball bat down onto its head. It quickly moved away and threw Magna towards a building as Luck caught him in the air. Finral used his spatial magic to transport Luck and Magna over to the fake Secre as they used Flame-Lightning Explosive Cannon, quickly putting an end to the fight. Asta poked the Blank with his anti-magic sword, revealing another corpse-like woman under the robe, as they all looked at her in disgust. Luck and Magna looked in the building for an unconscious Secre. but came up with nothing, even when Asta used his ki to look for her, but he came with nothing as well. The real Secre looked absolutely disgusted that someone tried to impersonate her, and tried to do something with Zora. She still hadn't explained what happened between them, but they didn't really care as Zora looked heavily injured. A deep gash was across his back, with smaller cuts across his entire body, a faded cut on his chest, and a missing eye. They had been torturing him for who knows how long to try and lure Asta into a trap and put a fake Zora in the group. He was awake but could barely walk. The Black Bulls immediately took Zora to Dr. Owens, but when they arrived there was nobody in the building. Vanessa wandered around, looking for a doctor to treat Zora, but instead found a group of deceased magic knight members, torn to pieces. Vanessa tried to run back to tell the others what she saw, but someone grabbed her by her neck before she could get too far. "Aw, did you miss me?" the person said to Vanessa. She threw her back to her friends as they chuckled to no one. Finral ran over to Vanessa as the person revealed themself to the Black Bulls. "Oh, it feels so good to be back. I've been waiting to kill you fuckers for a long time," Vanica Zogratis said as she revealed herself to everyone. Asta looked at her and felt his heart sink into his chest as he froze in fear at the sight of her.

Vanica's footsteps echoed through the silent building as she pulled out her grimoire and a new one they've never seen before, a dark purple covering most of it with little blue circles on it, and moved closer to the Black Bulls. Everyone knew exactly who Vanica was, as even Luck couldn't stop himself from showing his fear from everyone. The Dark Triad were the only people Luck didn't want to ever fight, as he felt the terrifying aura coming from all of them. "H-how the hell are you alive, I killed you, I know I did," Asta stuttered. Vanica looked over at Asta with a terrifying smile as she explained simply, "You never did."

Vanica laughed maniacally as she slowly made her way to Vanessa and Finral. Finral used his spatial magic to bring them further away as Vanica started generating blood and started to create her Red Beast. Finral teleported everyone outside the building, as the Red Beast outgrew the building as she used the blood from Blank members hiding inside the building and the two they defeated earlier. Noelle's ran out of mana using Sea Dragon's Roar on the fake Secre, and Asta had an emotionless face and didn't talk or move again, so they were basically defenseless. The beast quickly outgrew the buildings around it as it quickly moved over to the Clover Kingdom's castle. They all chased after the beast to try and stop it from doing more damage than it already has. Zora could barely walk, so he had to get help from Luck and Secre. Magna had to slap Asta out of his trance before they chased after Vanica. "Asta, what the hell is she doing here, I thought you defeated her and the other two from the Spade Kingdom," Magna asked Asta. Asta looked away and remained silent as they heard the beast tear into the castle's walls. They caught a glimpse of the Red Beast grab someone from inside the castle as the Red Beast started to disappear. When they finally reached where the Red Beast tore into, they saw several hundred Blanks standing around Vanica and the person she grabbed from inside the building. The Black Bulls hid just out of view from the Blanks and Vanica, who had just slaughtered two more magic knights by making the blood in their bodies kill themselves from inside their bodies after she cut them with a small blade on their arms and torso. The person she grabbed from inside the castle was nowhere to be seen yet, but the purple grimoire she had earlier was nowhere to be found. The Blanks bowed down at her presence, as they lowered their hoods, revealing their flesh to be rotten as well, some worse than others. Vanica laughed maniacally as she announced to them, "I demand you to find those Black Bulls bastards and bring them here so we can start the show! Kill anyone you find until we get them."

The Black Bulls took in their situation as they realized how bad their position was. Most of the other magic knight squads were sent around the kingdom for Blank attacks, and the only other squad besides them had lost most of their members. Zora was in no condition to walk, let alone fight, and Magna, Luck, and Noelle were waiting for their mana to recharge, and there was no way that Finral, Secre, Vanessa, and Asta could fight all of those Blanks by themselves. Retreating was the only thing they could do to avoid the Blanks, but they still had to protect the people of the kingdom. They had no idea what they would to the people if they couldn't find them, and they couldn't let that happen. Before they could decide on what to do, Asta made his decision in his mind already and would follow through on it regardless of his teammates' decisions.

"I'm giving myself up voluntarily, we don't know what they could do to the people of the kingdom if they find us. I won't let innocent people die because I wanted to be selfish," Asta said to his teammates. They knew Asta wouldn't change his mind, and his words inspired his friends to make the right decision, and they all said that they'd join him. "No, I know Vanica only wants me. She won't care who she gets as long as she gets me with them," he told them. "Wait, Asta, you know you can't take on all of those Blanks. We're going with you. If we don't you could..." Finral said as Asta pointed one of his swords at him, cutting him off. "No, this is my battle, not yours. I don't want anything bad to happen to any of you. You can stay and help people get to safety. I'm going alone, and that's final," Asta replied. Zora gained enough of his strength back to stand in front of Asta's sword and pushed it away. "I'm goin' with you. I'm close to death anyway, I might as well go out in style with ya. You're not convincing me to stay, with the injuries I got, I'd rather go out fightin'," he said, his sharp teeth appearing again. "We're not dying, I'll make sure of it," Asta replied defiantly. Asta walked over to Noelle, kissed her, and whispered in her ear, "I love you," before walking over to Vanica with Zora following behind him. "Hey, I'm over here!" Asta shouted over at Vanica, getting her attention. "Aw man, just two of you this time? Doesn't matter, I wanted to at least get you and maybe one or two of your friends, especially the silver-haired one," Vanica said in her condescending voice. Asta pulled out his swords and grimoire as they proclaimed, "I'm not giving myself up without a fight!"

Vanica sneered at them as she jumped down from the platform she was standing on, laughing at them as she pulled out the small blade and licked the small amount of blood on it. "It'd be no fun fighting just the two of you, so I'll let my minions take care of you. I have to get someone anyway. Have fun," Vanica said as she threw the blade at Zora and left the two to fight. Zora dodged the blade and set traps around the Blanks as Asta used his Demon-Slayer Sword to cut a few of the Blanks in half. They had no blood inside their bodies and no organs either, they just turned to dust and disappeared. " _So they aren't alive after all. At least, these aren't,_ " Asta thought. Asta was blocking their attacks as best as he could, but the overwhelming amount of them was making it very hard to, but he was managing. Zora was having a bit of a harder time dealing with them, as his missing eye had made it slightly difficult to judge how far away some of his traps were. He used his trap magic to put a full-body counter trap on himself, as he couldn't move that fast cause of his injuries. He set down explosion traps, binding traps, paralyzing traps, and every spell he could use.

The rest of the Black Bulls did as Asta told them and helped people evacuate from buildings. Noelle was very reluctant to let Asta fight on his own, but she knew he would be okay after this. He always bounced back, no matter what happened to him. Finral was using his spatial magic to take them away to a safer part of the kingdom, and Vanessa was healing any injuries that they had. Luck, Magna, Secre, and Noelle were helping people out of their homes as fast as they could, and Charmy was using her sheep cushion to help people jump out of their windows if they couldn't get out fast enough. Gordon had snuck off to secretly help out Zora and Asta by using his curse magic to stop some of the Blanks. It didn't do much as most of the Blanks rebuilt themselves and fight again. It was exhausting both Zora and Asta, who now had their fair share of cuts and burns. Beads of sweat trickled down their faces as the Blanks kept getting closer and closer to them, no matter what they did to try and stop them. Eventually, they caught both of them using by using explosion magic and sending them flying, where they were then put into binding spells. They took away their grimoires as a few Blanks announced to Vanica that they caught them. "Perfect, I just finished up. Bring them to us," Vanica shouted at the Blanks. Asta and Zora were picked up by two groups of several Blanks and were tossed over to Vanica. "Hello there, you pieces of shit. I thought you two would've lasted longer against my minions, but it doesn't matter. I got something to show you anyway. Get over here!" Vanica shouted towards someone. A figure slowly walked through the darkness to reveal himself and, to no one's surprise, it was Dante Zogratis. 

Even though Asta had been expecting him to be the one Vanica freed, it still didn't make his heartbeat slow down. "Took you long enough. Do you know how hard it is to be insane for five years? It doesn't matter, I'm finally out of there. You can leave now Megicula, you've served your purpose," Dante said. " _Wait, Megicula? That's Vanica's devil, right?_ " Asta thought to himself. He looked over to Vanica as she started to chuckle before she stabbed a knife through Dante's hand. "Don't call me that, you both know that I hate it when you call by its name," Vanica angrily replied. Dante took out the knife and threw it to his side as he turned to Asta and Zora, staring at Asta with murderous intent and deep hatred. "Let's show these two the new trick that you taught me," Dante said as he pulled out the purple grimoire. Vanica picked them up and threw them on a platform high above the mass gathering of Blanks. "How many souls are here?" Dante asked his sister. Vanica looked down at the crowd of Blanks and told Dante, "There's enough here for one soul." Asta and Zora were confused about what they meant by souls, as Dante opened the grimoire and read off a spell inside it. "Soul Magic: Soul's Return," is all Dante said before the screams of the Blanks overtook the entire capital. They were writhing in pain on the ground, screaming their lungs out as they started to disappear one by one until their screams stopped and there wasn't a single Blank left. In front of Dante, a little blue ball with a swirly tail hovering in front of him. Dante grabbed it and whispered something to it as it began to glow brighter and began to take the shape of a human. It stopped glowing as they saw Zenon standing where the soul was. "Welcome back brother. Get dressed and then we can get rid of these two fuckers, and get the rest of them," Vanica said to Zenon. He glared at Asta before leaving to put some clothes on.

The binding on Asta and Zora disappeared as Vanica kicked them both off the platform and they hit the ground hard. Asta barely had enough time to get up before Vanica tried to stab him from above. Asta dodged her slashes and tried to pull out one of his anti-magic swords, but couldn't get to his grimoire between Vanica's slashes. He knew that if he got even a small cut from her blade that he would die. Zora laid on the ground, trying his best to get up but couldn't. Vanica laughed as her pupil's dilated at the sight of seeing Asta panic. After an eternity of chasing Asta around with a knife, she threw it away and let her demon partially possess her and bring out her claw hand. Asta used this opportunity to take out one of his swords, but it was ineffective against her demon. Asta swung his sword over her, but she grabbed it and threw it away from him. "I'm going to rip out your fucking heart!" she shouted at him as she knocked him down. She thrust her claw towards Asta as he closed his eyes. He heard a squish come from in front of him as he opened his eyes to see that Zora jumped in front of Vanica's attack to protect Asta and had a hole where his heart should be. Vanica had his heart in her hand, and she looked at it with interest. "Aw, would you look at that? Your worthless friend gave you 10 more seconds of life," she said in a mocking tone as she threw Zora's heart away. Zora's body fell onto Asta as blood poured out of his wound and onto Asta. He felt inside of him snap as he carefully put Zora's body down. Vanica watched as Asta's aura changed yet again, as tears streamed down his face, and she felt something appear inside her. She realized what she felt inside her was fear as anger was painted across Asta's face and he screamed, "I'm going to fucking kill you!" as he let his demon take control again. He didn't even say the spell before he felt his bones and joints change. The last thing he saw before his vision turned black was fear on Vanica's face as she witnessed his demon transformation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I wish I had a co-writer and an editor sometimes. Anyway, thanks for reading this chapter! I can't believe that we've almost made it to chapter 10, and I can't wait for you to read it. I hope that I can make it the longest chapter yet, which means that it's probably going to take me about 7-8 days to write it. I hope it doesn't take that long, but I'll try my best. That's all for now. Have a good day/night.


	10. Dark Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long on this chapter. I'm going to stop giving estimates for when the next chapter is going to come out.

Asta opened his eyes to see the black void with light fog he sees in his nightmares, but because he never remembered them, this place was foreign to him. He looked around in a panic, not realizing that he was in his demon form again. He reached for his grimoire, only to find nothing was at his side. "What the hell?" Asta said as he saw something off in the distance. Something inside him told him to stay away from whatever he saw, but he ignored it and went to confront whatever he saw. As he walked through the darkness, he thought someone was watching him. When he looked back, though, all he saw was the everlasting darkness that engulfed the land and the fog around the air. His footsteps echoed throughout the empty land, as they felt heavier the closer he got. His breathing became labored even though he was walking at a slow pace, as his body began to get colder. He could see his cold breath in front of him as his fingertips began to turn blue from the freezing air. The joints in Asta's arms and legs began to ache as his movement became slower. Even though he was slowly dying, Asta wasn't going to give up and escape this place. The fog grew dense around Asta as the ground below him began to fade away. He tried his best to outrun it, but his frozen joints slowed him down too much, and he fell into the endless darkness.

Asta felt himself fall slowly into the darkness, as though it was water pulling him down. He struggled to escape the darkness's grip on him as it pulled him more and more into itself. He struggled to keep his head above the pit of darkness as not only was the darkness pulling him down, but the fog began to choke Asta. He could feel the fog take away the oxygen from his body till he slipped under the fog and inside the darkness. For the first time in months, Asta had felt afraid of what was going on. He wondered if he would ever see Noelle again, or his friends, or anyone else for that matter. He was breathing inside the darkness somehow, relieving Asta slightly, but was still afraid as he couldn't move his body. The more Asta fell into the pit, the more pain he could feel inside his body. Asta looked at his hand to see his wedding ring was still on his hand, giving Asta some hope that he could get out of here if he tried hard enough. After an eternity of trying to move his body to try and escape what Asta could only describe as his own personal hell, he felt himself get yanked down by something. It threw him towards the very bottom of the darkness, where Asta fell out onto the other side. He was falling through a bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight. He spun around like an out of control aircraft until he straightened himself out and tried to activate his demon wings. When he reached for his grimoire, he felt nothing there again, as he was getting closer to the ground. He felt as though he was slowing down as he got closer to the ground until he was just several feet off of it. His feet touched the ground for only a few seconds before falling through it again. It was more instantaneous this time, as Asta sunk through almost immediately this time. The fall wasn't slow this time, as Asta was falling through the darkness before hitting the ground of the pit hard. The darkness mixed with red, and two devils appeared in front of him.

The first devil was Asta's devil, Liebe, standing in front of him, eye to eye, and a huge devil that dominated both of them. "Goddammit, Atsa. I've been trying to get your attention for years, and now you finally come to see me," Liebe angrily told Asta. Still confused about where he was, Asta stood up and asked Liebe, "Where am I? I don't remember where I was before I entered this place." Liebe chuckled before pointing behind him and telling Asta, "Don't ask me. I've been here for five years now. I could only provide my anti-magic to you because the asshole behind us won't let me do anything besides that. The devil behind them shrunk down to Asta's size but was still staring him down. "Hello there, my name is Asta," he said to the devil. He's faced so many of them by now that he treated them like a regular person. Well, as long as they weren't attempting to kill him or his friends. The devil took on a feminine-like appearance, with two long, curved horns protruding from her head, with dark red eyes staring into Asta's soul. She had claws for fingers, along with two enormous wings growing out of her back. She abruptly slashed her nails on Asta's chest, leaving cuts on his clothes and cuts on himself. The cuts bled profusely and didn't look like they would stop anytime soon. Asta jumped back in response, and Liebe showed his nails in retaliation. "Be careful, you idiot. If you die, then I die too, and I don't want to die because you got tricked by a devil," Liebe shouted at Asta. "I can't fight though, my grimoire got taken away from me when I entered this place," Asta said to Liebe as he dodged another slash from the devil. "Godammit, I always do all the work around here," Liebe said under his breath. "I'll take of her while you try to figure out something. Whatever you do, don't let her get another hit on you," Liebe said as he charged at the devil. His wings grew larger as he jumped off the ground and flew above her before charging down at her. The devil dodged the attack at an alarmingly fast pace, appearing behind Liebe and kicking him in his back. Liebe hadn't even hit the ground before the devil appeared behind him, and grabbed Liebe by his head, and throwing him into the ground. The ground cracked under the impact as Asta's head was filled with pain, and the world changed colors again. Asta had desperately tried to find a way out of this place but couldn't even find a wall in this place. He fell to his knees in pain as the devil picked up Liebe again and threw him towards Asta. Asta couldn't dodge it, and the two hit each other, sliding across the ground as the world changed colors again. "Damn... _huff_...this asshole is a little stronger than I thought," Liebe said as he got to his feet. 

Asta stood up next to Liebe as the devil appeared in front of them and picked up both of them by their necks as it started to strangle Liebe. The devil looked straight into Asta's eyes as the world around him changed one more time and started to play a few of Asta's memories. Asta watched them and noticed something they all had in common. They all were of Asta at the lowest points in his life. The devil showed Asra almost getting defeated against that guy who used chain magic, Asta hearing his arms could never be repaired, Asta almost getting beaten by Licht, and, his most painful memory, Yuno getting killed. Asta hated seeing these, and him getting held by his neck by a devil wasn't helping the situation. "Ah yes, this one will do nicely," the devil said before tossing Liebe away and put its hands on Asta's head as its eyes began to glow. Asta saw the world around him begin to change into the night where Yuno had died again, but it was only him and the devil this time. Liebe had disappeared with a trace as the devil threw Asta into the ground and began to speak to him. "Here we are again, returning to this place once again. It sad that even though you tried hard to break free from your binding, you still failed to protect your brother," the devil said to Asta mockingly. "All these years later, and now you have even more important people to protect, yet you still doubt your ability to protect them, especially that girl you love. I don't even know how you actually fell in love with a dirty little bitch like her or how you can care for the other people in your life. It almost makes me regret making you fall in love with that girl on purpose now that you actually love her," the devil said as they got closer to Asta. The last thing it said caught Asta's attention immediately as he asked it, "What do you mean that you made me fall in love with Noelle?" The devil smirked a toothy grin as it stopped in its track and said, "What, you didn't know I made you fall in love with that girl so I could take her away from you? Well, it's not your fault you didn't know. I mean, why would I tell you my plan?" Asta felt next to his side to finally feel his grimoire and pulled out his Demon-Dweller Sword, and got prepared to swing it at the devil. Asta ran up to it and swung his sword as hard as he could as his sword passed into it with no effect. "Do you really think that's your real grimoire? Where do you think we are?" the devil tauntingly said to Asta. "I don't know, but I'll get out of here and kick your ass when I do," Asta shouted at the devil. The devil laughed as it told Asta, "It's a little hard to escape your mind."

Asta was taken aback by what the devil had told him as it used this window of opportunity to grab Asta by his arm and throw him into a nearby pile of broken glass. Asta screamed in pain as the devil didn't waste a second before attack Asta again, this time with the blade Vanica uses. Asta received the blade through his hand as he clutched a shard of glass and hit the devil on its face. The devil jumped back as white blood came from the cut, and Asta threw a few more pieces of glass at it. The devil dodged the glass as Asta charged towards it and tackled it into the ground. Asta began beating the devil down with his fists as more blood came out of the devil. Asta had become fed up with the devil doing this to him and needed to let out all of his anger towards it. He beat the devil until his fists were bloody and he could barely move his arms anymore. He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes to breathe a quick sigh of relief, only to look down and see a bloody and beaten Noelle under him. "Asta... _sniff_... why are you doing this to me?" she asked as Asta got off of her and looked nearby to see he was inside the Black Bulls base. The other members were looking at him with fear in their eyes as Zora and Magna helped move Noelle away. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Vanessa asked him. "Do I need to kill you?" Luck asked as his eyes radiated anger. Magna pulled out his flame baseball bat and pointed it at him as he said, "Do you really consider yourself a man after what you just did?" They all asked what was wrong with him until Noelle said, "I don't love you anymore." All the Black Bulls simultaneously charged at him as everything disappeared again. "Do you want something like that to happen to you, because it will eventually happen and it will destroy your life," the devil said as it reappeared to Asta again. "No, I won't. I would never do something like that to anyone," Asta pleaded. "You just did to me, so I have trouble believing that," the devil replied smugly. Asta looked away as the devil appeared in front of him and asked, "Would you like to make a deal?" 

Asta became dumbfounded that the devil had bothered to ask him this question. "Hell no! You just tried to kill me, and now you want to make a deal? Why would you even think about asking me that?" Asta shouted at the devil as he tried to take another punch at it. The devil dodged the punch and appeared behind and asked him, "If I took on a more familiar form, would you take it?" The devil didn't even wait for Asta to respond before changing shape again. The devil glowed brightly for a few seconds before touching the ground and stopped glowing. Asta gasped as he saw the devil had taken on the appearance of Yuno and started to speak just like him. "Why the hell do you look like Yuno?" Asta asked angrily towards the devil. "First, don't call me that pathetic human's name. My name is Hisame. Secondly, I chose the form you've seen me in most of the time," Hisame said in Yuno's calm manner. "What do you mean the form I've seen you in," Asta shouted towards Hisame. Hisame chuckled before telling him, "Do you really think his spirit returned to you? I'm the one who appeared at his grave and gave you your grimoire back, but you thought it was actually that human? Wow, how much of an idiot are you?" Asta felt something inside him snap as Hisame laughed at him. Without thinking, Asta charged at the devil, prepared to kill it for messing with his mind. He tried to hit the devil, but it just grabbed his fist and threw him into the ground. "This is a battle you can't win, no matter how hard you try," Hisame said in its own demonic voice. Asta ignored Hisame's words and tried to kick its legs, but he moved too slowly, and Hisame kicked Asta instead. Asta slid across the ground and got his leg impaled by a piece of broken wood.

Asta screamed in pain as Hisame, still in Yuno's form, picked him up by his shirt and told him, "You've lost." Hisame revealed its claws and was about to strike Asta down when Liebe broke through the memory and stabbed it in the back with his own nails. Hisame screamed and turned back into its regular form, dropping Asta and slashing its claws at Liebe. Liebe took it through his side and continued to thrust his nails through Hisame until they both fell onto their knees. Hisame had enough strength left to throw away Liebe and back on its feet. Hisame whispered something under its breath as black binds came out of the ground, tying themselves around Asta and Liebe. Hisame walked with a slight limp to where Asta was tied down and told him, "It doesn't matter now. Your mind is damaged enough." Hisame put its hands on Asta's head again as Liebe struggled to break free from his binds, and everything around Asta disappeared again while Hisame was laughing to itself.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finral had just sent the last of the townspeople away and were regrouping near the castle where Asta and Zora were fighting Vanica. "I think we've gotten everyone out of here now. I know he said not to, but I think we need to help Asta and Zora. I know they won't be able to fight her on their own," Magna said to Luck while they were running back to their teammates. Luck was unsure if he wanted to do this help or not, considering Magna had just gotten done with physical therapy a few days ago and wasn't in the best shape for fighting someone like Vanica yet. "I don't think we should fight, Magna. We both used up our mana on that Blank and haven't gained enough back to use any strong attacks. I can tell you're in no condition to fight as well. You're out of breath running right now and was out of breath after we used that spell earlier," Luck pointed out to Magna. Magna looked away from Luck as he knew he was right. He really wasn't in the best shape to fight but didn't want to admit it. He felt like he needed to keep up his image of being manly, especially after everyone saw him in his weakest state. "I know that, but I can't leave Asta to fight by himself. I would never forgive myself if he died, and I could've helped but didn't," Magna said to Luck. "But what if you die?" Luck asked.

Magna and Luck had stopped running as Magna turned to look at Luck. Magna opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it as he couldn't bring himself to say anything. "Do you not care about your own life? Do you think your life is meaningless to us?" Luck asked Magna. Magna looked away from Luck as he started running over to where the others were. Luck grew worried at his silence, but he knew Magna wouldn't say anything to him or anyone else. He didn't want Magna to hate him, but he knew he had to say something to him. Luck ran to join the others as they heard a loud noise coming from the castle where Asta and Zora were supposed to be fighting. Finral looked over to the area and saw Asta in his devil form, tossing Vanica around into buildings and the ground. Away from them, Finral saw Gordon holding Zora's body, desperately looking through his grimoire for a curse to help him. Finral had run over to where Gordon was, followed quickly by the rest of the Black Bulls. They saw Zora with a hole in his chest where his heart should be, blood streaming out of his injury, and no life in his eyes. Grey had tried her best to help him too, but it was in vain as Zora had been dead for several minutes. Silence overtook them all as they silently mourned the death of their friend. Luck's smile appeared to grow more sadistic as he looked at Zora's body, Magna looked away, and Secre quietly sobbed. Luck and Magna's mana returned as they walked up to where Asta and Vanica were fighting. Luck used the natural mana to make lightning strike both of them as Magna threw blue fireballs that exploded near them.

They both quickly recovered from the attack and looked at the two standing near them as Vanica started provoking Asta by threatening them. "Hey, look, Asta! The rest of your little buddies came to die at my hands!" she shouted towards Asta. He roared and slashed his claws at her, barely missing her. Vanica had a look of slight panic in her voice and her face. She remembered this form before from when Asta tore her to bits, and she clearly didn't look happy fighting Asta in his devil form. He was just as fast as her, strong and even sturdier than her, making it almost impossible to hurt Asta. "We're going to help Asta finish you off so you can't do any more harm than you've already done," Magna shouted to Vanica. She chuckled as she told him, "Do you really think he'll listen to you? He can't even listen to himself. Good luck trying, though," Vanica said. Luck used the natural mana again to strike Vanica twice again as Asta stood by in a frozen state again. "It's clear my words aren't getting through to you, so I'll let my brother deal with you two," Vanica said as she jumped away from the trio.

Not even a few seconds later, both Dante and Zenon showed themselves to three and stood next to their sister. "Sister dearest, how can you not defeat someone as weak as him?" Zenon asked Vanica as she put another blade up to his neck. Her hand was unsteady as she told him, "Shut up, will you? He's in his devil form again." Dante stepped forward to face the frozen Asta. Dante stuck his hand into Asta's chest and felt his magic drain out of himself and into the devil. Magna and Luck stood close by, ready to attack them if they tried anything to hurt them. "Zenon, I want you to find the townspeople and bring them to me. I have another soul I want to bring back," Dante said to Zenon as he walked away from them to meet the other Black Bulls. Zenon used his spatial magic to leave just as fast as he appeared. Luck and Magna were going to follow him but were quickly grabbed by Asta, who threw them away so he could continue fighting Vanica on his own. The two landed next to their squadmates as Dante came back and began to approach them.

His presence was unnerving to them, as he looked the same except for the scar around his neck where Asta continuously tore his head off. "Oh fuck," Magna said as he readied himself to fight. Dante stopped a few feet away from the Black Bulls, staring at them one by one in complete silence until he said, "Perish," and charged towards Magna. He barely had enough time to get out of the way as Dante turned his hand into a sword and swiped at him. Luck charged towards Dante using his lightning shoes and grabbed him by his head, and slammed it into the ground. Magna threw more blue fireballs towards him as Luck jumped away and used the natural mana to send over twenty lightning bolts into Dante at the same time the fireballs discharged. The combination of the two attacks caused a large amount of dust to form where Dante was on the ground. The dust settled after an eternity, only for them to see Dante standing with a grin on his face. "It appears that I'm a little weaker. No matter, you'll all be dead soon enough," Dante said as he prepared himself for another attack. Luck and Magna were shocked to see their attacks did nothing to him even though they knew about his regeneration abilities. Dante charged towards Magna again but had his attack interrupted by Finral using his spatial magic to move Dante away from them. He became visibly annoyed at missing his attack again and employed 50% of his devil's power to attack them again. He charged at Luck this time, at a speed that neither Finral nor Luck could do to stop him. Luck put up his thunder gloves at the last possible second to block the attack but still got flung back into a pillar.

While this was happening, Asta and Vanica were still fighting above them. The two moved their fight so they could not disturb the fight below them. Any attack Vanica tried to hit Asta with was absorbed and thrown back at her, and Asta couldn't land a hit on her because she was trying to run away from him. She was trying to outrun him, but he was almost the same speed as her. Asta caught up to Vanica and slashed at her back, leaving deep marks on her. Vanica fell to the ground with a scream, with Asta now standing above her. He was about to slash at her and end her life, but he froze a few inches from her face. Vanica used the opportunity to slip away and kick Asta off the castle. Asta fell forward and out of Vanica's sight. She stepped forward to see him slam into the ground below but instead was grabbed by her face by Asta. Asta threw her in the air and dashed towards her using his wings that had grown larger. Vanica used 70% of her devil's power to get her wings and fly away from Asta. The pain in her back was causing her difficulty getting away from him. The two were leaving a black streak in the sky, distracting the fight below them for a moment. 

Vanessa had been using her thread magic to pull Magna, Luck, and Noelle away from Dante's attacks, and Finral was teleporting them. It was similar to the fight they had with Vetto a few years ago that Finral reenacted with Vanessa a few months ago. The battle that Finral and Vanessa had reenacted a few months ago had helped Vanessa with fighting Dante, although seeing him caused her head to hurt. Noelle was in her Valkryie Dress, trying to impale Dante with her spear, Luck had his thunder gloves and boots equipped, and Magna had on flame armor, which he got during his coma. Grey, Gordon, and Secre were doing their best to help out after they moved Zora's body to a safer spot. Grey multiplied the three fighting Dante while Gordon and Secre were trying to seal and curse Dante but were having no luck getting him with either spell. Dante's gravity magic was causing problems for them, especially Finral, who had to quickly move around his portals to catch someone before they hit the ground. Vanessa and Finral were almost out of magic now, straining themselves past their limits and beat Dante. Dante swung his arm at Vanessa's strings and cut them, causing all three to hit the ground with a loud thud. Finral had strained himself too hard and passed out, Vanessa was out of magic, along with Gordon and Secre, and Grey couldn't move her arms anymore. 

Asta and Vanica were still fighting in the air, Vanica desperately trying to stay away from Asta. She grabbed another small blade and threw it at him, hitting him square in the chest, but it did nothing. Vanica, running out of options, flew over to Noelle and picked her off the ground by her hair. She flew back to where Asta was and threatened to slit her throat with her knife. "Look over here, lover boy! I got your little girlfriend with me, and if you know what's good for you, you should stop fighting me, or I'll cut this bitch up!" Vanica shouted towards Asta. He floated in the air completely still, making Vanica uneasy and angry at him. "Hey! Did you not hear me? I'll kill this little whore if you don't do anything!" Vanica shouted again. He started to convulse as his form began to change again, creating an even more unsettling aura that even Dante found disturbing. His entire body grew larger, along with his nails and horns, and he let out a devilish cry that rang out across the entire kingdom. His tall eight-foot-tall body grew to an inhuman 80 feet as his wings grew out, blocking out the sun and blanketing the entire kingdom in darkness. He reached out towards Vanica as she dropped Noelle. She tried in vain to get away, but Asta had caught her and crushed her body in his hand.

Zenon had returned with the hundreds of townspeople behind him as he threw someone who had tried to attack him. Dante walked over to him as he made everyone into the ground with his gravity magic as Asta froze again. "Let's hurry this up. I don't know how long he's going to be like that," Dante said as he took out the purple grimoire. He said," Soul Magic: Soul's Return," and waited for the soul to appear. Just like the Blanks, the people screamed and began to disappear as their screams began to overtake everything again. Eventually, the screams stopped, and another soul ball appeared in front of him. "Who are you bringing back this time?" Zenon asked. Dante didn't speak to Zenon, as he let part of his devil take control and cut himself and bled on the soul ball. The soul ball turned from blue to black as Dante whispered something, and it began to take form. It slowly took the form of a man with horns and small wings on their back. The glowing stopped as everyone got a good look at the figure standing next to them, and they all felt their hearts sink into their bodies.

It was Yuno, except he looked like a devil, with his eyes black with red pupils, curved horns, and bat-like wings. He looked around his surroundings and took notice of the giant devil Asta and looked at him with disgust. "What kind of disgusting animal is that thing?" he asked Dante. "That's our enemy," he explained to him. Yuno scoffed and turned around, asking Zenon, "Can you get us out of here? I don't want to look at this monster." Zenon opened a portal to a hideout where Vanica had been living for the past few years. "We'll be back to finish you off another time. I'm almost out of magic anyway," he said as he stepped through the portal. The portal closed as Asta's devil form began to disintegrate, and he fell to the ground. Noelle jumped in the air and caught him. She put him down on the ground and inspected if he was okay while the rest of them took in what happened. They all sat in silence as they took in their loss and realized how much trouble the kingdom was in right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It felt really good to finally publish this chapter. I'll be taking a break for two weeks to relax from writing and to come up with ideas for the next few chapters. Hope you liked reading this one as it's the longest chapter yet and probably will be for a while. As always, have a good day/night, and I'll see you when I release the next chapter. BTW, if anyone wants to help co-write or edit these, I'll gladly take the help.


	11. Blood on Our Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for being patient with me while I was on my break. Enjoy this chapter!

Noelle had been shaking Asta lightly, trying to wake him up. Nothing she tried seemed to do anything as Asta lay on the stone ground in front of the castle. Close to them was the body of Vanica Zogratis, who Asta had crushed in his devil form. The remaining members of the Black Bulls took in the events that had just transpired. Asta’s foster brother, Yuno, had returned because of Dante using a resurrection spell to bring his soul back. Except for Dante corrupting Yuno by using the blood of his devil. Yuno’s appearance had taken on a more devilish look, including horns coming out of his head and wings on his back. No one came out of the fight without a few bruises, although they were all mostly okay. Zora’s lifeless body had been sitting inside an abandoned building where the hole in his chest had finally stopped bleeding. Asta had Zora’s blood on his chest and Vanica’s blood on his hand but had no visible injuries. The rest had a few bruises and cuts from being to the ground by Dante's gravity magic. Finral went past his limits and ended up passing out from exhaustion and was currently next to Vanessa, who was holding her head in pain. She hadn't been injured but seeing Dante made her feel a terror that felt very familiar to her. She didn't remember him, but she still felt as though she had met and fought him before.

Luck and Magna were sitting next to each other in silence, both feeling terrible that they couldn't have helped sooner. "Dammit, if I was here a little sooner, I could've saved Zora," Magna thought to himself. Luck was thinking the same, blaming himself for something out of his control. Grey, Gordon, and Secre couldn't believe what had happened to their friend, and all of them were feeling different emotions. Grey was in disbelief that Zora was dead, Gordon was incredibly aggressive and wanted to kill Dante, and Secre was silently sobbing. Everything felt frozen in time, but only a few minutes had passed. Noelle's communication device went off in her pocket, and she opened it up to see Gauche asking what had happened. "Noelle, what the hell is going on over there? Something blocked out the sun for a few minutes over here, and it looked like it came from the Clover Kingdom," Gauche asked. "That thing was Asta. I don't know what he did, but he turned into a giant devil and crushed Vanica," Noelle explained. "What? I thought she was dead?" Gauche said in surprise. "It's not just her that's back. Dante and Zenon are as well, and they brought back Asta's brother. They did something to him, and we're just resting a little," Noelle explained. Gauche whispered something under his breath and asked if everyone was okay. "Yeah, we're okay, except for Zora. He's..," Noelle replied.

The communicator froze for a few seconds before Gauche said, "The captain and I are heading back immediately with a few other squad members. We'll get back as fast as we can." The communicator shut off, and silence overtook them again. Next to Vanessa, Finral began to wake. He sat up as Vanessa hugged him tightly as he took a minute to remember what happened. "Thank God you're okay! I was worried something terrible happened to you," Vanessa said. Finral blushed a little as he replied, "Don't worry about me. How's everyone else doing?" The rest of the Black Bulls gave their conditions to each other as Charmy reappeared with a status report. "I checked around the town for more Blanks and any townspeople," Charmy said. "They're all dead. The Blanks left their robes behind when Vanica died and when Zenon..," Charmy said. She couldn't finish her sentence without getting a look of pain on her face. "Nevermind that, how's Asta?" she asked them. "We don't know. He appears to be okay, but we won't know until he wakes up," Magna said. Finral spaced out for a minute before saying, "Check his eyes." At first, they looked at Finral with confusion before remembering the events that had transpired a few months ago.

Noelle cautiously reached her hand towards Asta's face and checked both of his eyes. His left iris was still green, but when she went to check his other eye, Asta's arm shot towards hers and grabbed it. A sickening smile appeared on his face as he revealed his sharp teeth. "Damn, his friends are a little smarter than I thought," Asta said. His voice sounded partially distorted, and his teeth were sharp on the left part of his mouth. Noelle forceablly removed her arm from his grip and pulled out her grimoire to attack him. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. That applies to the rest of you as well," Asta said. "Give us one good reason not to," Magna said. Asta chuckled before walking up to Vanica's core and telling them, "You wouldn't be hurting me. Your friend would be the only one to feel what you do to him. I wouldn't mind that personally, but I'm sure your friend wouldn't like it if you caused him tons of pain." He poked and prodded Vanica's body with his foot as the Black Bulls took in this new information. "Look, Liebe was it? What are you trying to pull with this?' Magna asked. Asta grew angered and kicked Vanica's corpse, telling off Magna. "My name is Hisame, and I don't want you to forget it. If you do, I will not hesitate to kill this human," Asta shouted. He grabbed a knife off Vanica's body and tried to stab himself through his left hand.

He brought the blade cleanly through his hand, leaving a sizable amount of blood on the knife. The devil-possessed Asta showed no pain on his face as he twisted the knife. He took it out of his hand and threw it back on Vanica's corpse. "Now, if you want your friend back, you're going to do everything I say," Asta said. "What the hell did you do with Asta!" Noelle shouted at Hisame. He looked at her and brushed her off. "Your friend is trapped inside his mind. I put him inside a little world, and he's staying there until he's exhausted all usefulness," Asta said. The Black Bulls had no choice but to listen to Hisame or lose Asta to this devil. "Now, if we're all on the same page here, I would like for you all to listen to what I have to say, " Hisame said as it walked over to the Black Bulls.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asta opened his eyes slowly after an eternity of being stuck in darkness. He saw the ceiling of an unfamiliar place, lying in a bed he didn't recognize. His eyes adjusted as he slowly sat up and took in his surroundings and for anything that looked familiar, but he only noticed his grimoire. His clothes were damp with sweat, and his head hurt like someone had hit him with a rock. The bed he had slept in was a king-sized one, with velvet sheets and more than a dozen pillows behind him. For a moment, he thought he was inside a royal suite with Noelle, but the walls were unkempt and dirty like a commoners' house. Asta got out of bed and examined himself in a full-body mirror. He had some bloody bandages on his head and legs and a cast on his right leg. " _What the hell happened to me_?" Asta thought to himself as he grabbed his head, trying to remember what happened to him. He became distracted when the door opened, and Noelle walked inside. She was shocked to see Asta awake and went to hug her fiance. "Thank God you're okay! I was worried something terrible happened to you," she said as some tears fell down her face and onto Asta's shoulder. 

"We've all been keeping an eye on you for weeks, hoping you would wake soon," Noelle said as she hugged him closer. Asta had no idea what she was talking about, as every time he tried to remember past a certain point, his head hurt terribly. "I'm sorry, but I can't remember anything before I got my injuries. Do you think you could tell me what happened?" Asta asked. Noelle looked away from Asta as she told him, "I'm sorry, Asta, but none of us remember what happened either. We all woke up about three weeks ago with injuries we don't remember getting. Everyone seems okay, though, so I don't think we have to worry about them." Asta sat back down on the bed and asked Noelle a few more questions about her condition and how everyone else was doing. While talking to Noelle, he felt an incredible pain in his head that caused him to double over in pain.

Noelle quickly left to find someone to help him as Asta fell onto his knees. He struggled to stand like someone was forcing his body to the ground. The more he fought against it, the more intense the feeling became. Asta managed to stand up for a few seconds but fell to the floor when the feeling overpowered him. He let out a scream of pain that echoed through the building. More of his wounds began to bleed through his bandages, and he began to feel weaker. Noelle returned with Vanessa and Secre by her side with panicked looks on their face. Nero used her magic to seal his injuries, while Vanessa sewed up the cuts on Asta’s body. The pain Asta had begun to subside, but the injuries he had were still bleeding profusely. His body temperature had risen to an unsafe level, making it hard for Vanessa to close his wounds. You could almost burn yourself getting close to him, but touching him would essentially give you a second-degree burn. Noelle had begun to use her water magic to try and cool him off, but she quickly found out that it would evaporate almost instantaneously, causing her to use up a lot of her magic quickly.

Asta was on the verge of passing out, but he powered through the pain as he had many times before, and, eventually, everything began to slow down. Vanessa had sewn up his cuts as best as she could, Nero had sealed up his injuries to the best of her abilities, and Noelle exhausted all of her magic, but Asta was finally okay. Everything was quiet for a moment until Vanessa made medicine for Asta using some herbs she had in a small pouch she carried around. “Take this. It should keep your fever down for a couple of hours,” Vanessa told Asta.

Asta did as he was instructed and ate the medicine, only for him to gag at its bitter taste. Everyone chuckled at his reaction while Vanessa said, “Sorry about the taste. If I could, I would make it taste better.” He slowly stood up as not to break the stitches and sat back down on the bed. “It’s okay, Vanessa. I know you wouldn’t make it taste that bad on purpose,” Asta said as he laid back on the bed. He glanced over at the walls and noticed that they looked slightly different. They looked cleaner, almost like they repainted recently. It bothered him for some reason, as he could’ve sworn the walls were completely different when he woke up. His head began to hurt from overthinking, so he thought his eyes were adjusting to the light and saw the walls a little differently.

He shrugged it off as Vanessa and Nero left the room, leaving only him and Noelle in the room. Noelle walked over to the bed and sat down next to Asta. She moved some of his hair out of his eyes and stared into his beautiful green eyes. She held his hand and tried to lighten the mood after what just happened. “So, um, that was a little crazy, huh?” Noelle asked. Asta wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t seen her in a few weeks or if it was something else, but he thought Noelle looked stunning. “Yeah, it was a little crazy. I’m glad that nothing serious happened. Thanks for helping me out, Noelle. I’ll be sure to thank Vanessa and Nero for their help later. I hope you don’t if I want to rest right now,” Asta replied. “That’s okay. You probably should get some rest. I’ll let you get some sleep,” Noelle said as she began to get up from the bed. “Oh, you don’t have to leave immediately, Noelle," Asta said. Noelle was happy to hear that, so she sat back down on the bed and began to talk to him once again. When Vanessa went to check up on Asta a few hours later, she found the two asleep next to each other and holding each other's hands. Vanessa quietly shut the door and left the two to their slumber. She was glad to see the two look so happy after such a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! I'm finally back from break, and my upload schedule has changed slightly. For one, I'm not going to put out a chapter every two days, as I said. It's been a little stressful as I also have schoolwork to work on as well, and that's more important than writing this story. If I could, I would start a Patreon and do this full time, but I need to wait about three years before I can do that. Secondly, I want this story to be as high quality as possible, and two days of writing isn't allowing me to put out the quality I want this story to have. When I spent time writing chapters 9 and 10, I felt like I was giving my story the best writing I could provide, and I want to continue to do that for the remainder of this story, no matter how long or short it is. Another thing, ignore what I said about this story being between either 20-40 chapters, as I'm not entirely sure when I want to end it. Disregard what I said about my upload schedule a few chapters back as well. I'm going to write a chapter once a week, starting with this chapter. That's all for now. Have a good day/night!


	12. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy this chapter. I have an important announcement at the end of it, so make sure to read it.

The next day had come earlier than expected for Asta, with his injuries causing him great pain, making him wake up a little before sunrise. He felt awful, although that didn’t surprise him. His body temperature was lower than it was yesterday, but he still had a fever. His clothes were damp with sweat, and his bandages were slightly bloody from his wounds getting stitched back up. He felt weak and could barely lift his arms over his head. He didn’t recognize the room he was in, mostly because of how dark it was, but also because of how disoriented he felt. The only light coming into the room was coming from the slightly open doorway. He felt his forehead, which felt damper and less warm than how he felt. “ _Dammit, the medicine Vanessa gave me must’ve worn off already,_ ” Asta thought.

He tried to fall back asleep, but the pain from his injuries mixed with his illness made it nearly impossible. His perception of time was off as well, making it seem hours had passed when only a few minutes had. “ _I’m twenty kinds of messed up right now,_ ” Asta thought to himself. “ _What the hell even happened to me? What the hell happened to the rest of us? Why can’t I remember anything? Why does something feel off about this?_ ” he questioned. Asta had a lingering feeling in his mind that something was off about this situation. He put it out of his mind for now, as thinking about it too much made his head hurt worse than it already did.

After an eternity of trying to sleep, he heard the door open slowly. He got blinded by the light coming from the hallway and closed his close for a few seconds. He heard someone’s footsteps get closer to him, and he felt something cold and wet get placed gently on his head. When he opened his eyes, he saw Noelle standing over him and her hands moving away from his face. She noticed Asta was awake, and she quickly apologized to him because she thought she had accidentally woke him up. “Oh, sorry, Asta. Did I wake you?” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s okay, Noelle. I’ve been for a while now. At least, I think I have. I can’t tell if I’ve been up for a few minutes or a few hours,” Asta said.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want me to do anything for you right now?” Noelle asked. “Yeah, can you get me a cold washcloth and put it on my forehead?” Asta asked. Noelle walked to the other side of the bed and sat down next to him. “I’ve already taken care of it,” Noelle said. Asta felt his forehead, and, sure enough, he felt the cold washcloth Noelle had just put on his forehead. “Thank you, Noelle. I know this is probably inconvenient having to do this,” Asta said. 

Noelle walked to the other side of the bed and sat down next to Asta as she said, “It’s no problem for me.” She smiled at him and placed her hand on his forehead. “Your fever seems to be going down pretty fast. Hopefully, you can recover fully by tomorrow,” Noelle said. Asta wasn’t thinking, like usual, and blurted out, “You’re so motherly, Noelle.”

Noelle became embarrassed at his words, and it seemed like her brain had shut off for a moment. Her hand hovered above Asta’s forehead, and Asta, not realizing what he said, asked her, “What’s wrong?” She snapped back to reality, but not before nearly falling off of the bed. Asta shot his arm out to her and grabbed her arm. Noelle regained her balance and apologized to Asta for straining his arm. “It’s alright. I’ve been in a worse condition than this. Remember when Vetto put a crushed my arms and I couldn’t use them?” Asta asked. ”Oh yeah. I remember we all looked for ways to heal our arms, and we ended up in the Witches’ Forest. Vanessa was going to give herself up for you, right?” Noelle asked. ”I think so. It’s been a while, so it’s all a little fuzzy in my mind, ” Asta replied. He had begun to feel drowsy now, most likely because of Noelle’s soft and calm voice. He finally began to fall back asleep as he listened to Noelle’s voice.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asta awoke early the next morning, well-rested and feeling much better. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he knew it had been a while from how stiff his body was. Darkness had still enveloped the room, making it hard for Asta to move around it. No one else was in the room as far as he could tell, not even Noelle, which made him feel slightly uneasy because it felt like someone was in the room with him. ”Is there anyone there?” Asta asked. Asta waited for a few seconds in case someone was there, but no one answered. He walked forward into a wall and smacked his head on it. When he leaned forward in response to the pain, he fell forward and landed on his face. ”What the hell? There was a wall here a second ago, ” Asta said as he stood up.

Objects around the room flickered in and out of Asta’s view, with static surrounding them. Flashes of Asta’s memory begun to engulf the room as he wandered around it. That’s how it started, at least. Liebe’s memories began to play alongside Asta’s, and a third set began to play shortly after. It took Asta a moment, but he eventually realized the room had changed once more. The memories were still playing, but at a faster pace than it was before. The room was a hallway that seemed to have no end. The memories were playing on the walls and ceiling and seemed to speed up every few seconds. The floor was dyed jet black, but Asta could still see something reflected on it.

It looked like a person, but not anyone that Asta had recognized. It looked like a mix of the Black Bulls members, with features like Zora’s sharp teeth and Secre’s horns. Asta bent down to touch it, but when his fingers grazed the reflection, he was forced upwards through the ceiling of the room. Asta felt as though he was falling again, but soon as he blinked, he was back in the room he woke in. Asta felt terrified by what was going on and wanted it to end. He ran out of the room and left his grimoire behind. He ran into the hallway, with no memories playing this time and a door to exit out of it. Asta kicked the door down, only for it to loop back to the room he left. Asta turned around in confusion to see the door at the other end of the hallway coming towards him. He had no time to counter and got hit with the door. Asta was flung into the room and through the wall, where he landed in the commons room.

Asta became disoriented and struggled to stand because of his injured leg. He let out a screech of pain as he saw his bone coming out of his leg. Asta reached for his grimoire to defend himself but realized that he forgot to grab it. He was immobilized, with no way to protect himself, with a threat that’s messing with the surroundings. That’s when Asta realized that there was no one in the base, not Gordon, not Grey, not even Henry was here. He contemplated what was happening when the front doors opened. Asta cried out, “Stop! There’s something in here!” but his warning fell on deaf ears.

The first person to walk inside the base was Magna, followed by Luck, and then Finral. They had were confused as to why Asta was screaming when they looked at his leg. Magna began to rush over to Asta when he saw an inhuman looking creature walking towards them. It was like the one Asta saw reflected in the hallway, but distorted to the point where you could barely describe it as human anymore. The creature had no eyes but instead had two mouths where its eyes would have been. A black ooze was dripping from where its tear ducts would be, and two tounges were licking the substance. The legs the creature had were colorless and had claws for feet. They were strangely muscular yet looked as though they would break if the creature moved too fast. Its arms were the reverse, as they appeared thin, but it struggled to lift them. Its torso was mangled and twisted into an indescribable horror that was sickening. “What the hell is that?!” Magna shouted. Luck stood next to Magna, his smile no longer on his face but instead a look of pure terror. Asta did his best to distance himself from the creature, a task made almost impossible, with his bone poking through his leg. The sounds of Asta’s struggle caught the creature’s attention, and it twisted its torso around to face him. It let out a piercing shriek as it ran towards Asta.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! I already broke my once-a-week upload schedule, so I'm just going to publish chapters when I feel they're done. That's not the important announcement I alluded to, though. The real announcement is I'm taking a one to two-month break. I feel as though I'm burning myself out writing these chapters at such a fast pace, at least to me. I already know what I want to do for the next few chapters, but every time I try to type up something, I lose almost all motivation after typing about three words. I know this is just some fan fiction story, but if I want to make writing my job, then I need to do the best I can on everything I write. Writing this chapter took so long because I could only write for about 30 minutes a day before I lost all motivation, not to mention all the revisions I had to do. This is the only chapter besides the first couple that I didn't have completely planned out, so if you notice a strange shift in tone, now you know why. During my break, I'm going to edit some of the chapters I feel really need it. This includes better formatting and tone, fixing small errors, and adding/removing plot details. If you have any suggestions, I would very much like to hear them. Have a Happy New Year, and I'll see you all after my break.


	13. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long with this chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

The creature let out a piercing shriek and ran towards Asta. Asta got up on his good leg and dragged it while the creature lunged towards him. He dodged its attack, and it went into a wall. Asta took this opportunity to run out of the base, with Magna and Finral helping him move faster. Luck was close behind them, waiting for that monster to come back from where it went through the wall. He could hear the creature moving through the base at an inhuman speed, disorienting the lightning mage. The noises around the base grew louder and faster for what felt like forever before suddenly stopping. Luck held his breath before jumping to the side and avoiding an attack from above. He put on his lightning gloves and boots before going into a fighting stance.

The creature twisted its head and looked over to Luck charging at it. He readied his fist and punched the monster with all of his strength, only for it to grab his hand. It began to twist his arm around while Luck fought against it. He freed his hand from the monster's grip and kicked the creature in its legs. He heard a loud snap before it fell to the ground with a piercing shriek. The creature swung at Luck's legs from the ground and managed to get ahold of one of his lightning boots. It tried to crush his leg, but Luck slipped out of the boot. He spun around in the air for a moment before bringing his leg down on the creature's head. It made a noise of pain before going limp and quiet. Luck doubted he had killed the monster, but he still ran outside to join the others. 

When he had arrived outside the base, he saw Asta getting his leg patched up by Vanessa and Noelle while being questioned by the rest of the Black Bulls. "Asta, do you have any idea what that thing was?" Finral asked as he looked behind him at the base. Asta let out a little grunt of pain as Vanessa cleaned his wound, looked over at Finral, and said, "No, I don't know what that thing is. It was there when I woke up, and it was messing with the base." 

He struggled to stay conscious because of his injury, with the pain being excruciating from a combination of little things. When he closed his eyes, Asta saw flashes of people he didn't recognize, saying stuff he couldn't hear. "I did the best I can to patch you up, but you're going to have to go to a real doctor to get this fixed," Vanessa said as she wrapped his leg up. Noelle and Vanessa helped Asta stand while he struggled to stay awake. 

After propping Asta against a nearby tree, Vanessa and Noelle went over to Finral, leaving Asta with his thoughts. "Something feels off about this. This monster shows up and messes with the base, I'm seeing people I've never seen before, and everything about this situation feels wrong," Asta thought to himself. "Something similar happened with the walls a few days ago. Has that creature been inside the base for a while?" He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his left hand and let out a quick yelp. Looking down at his hand, Asta saw a knife wound had appeared on his hand that grew bigger after a few seconds. Asta reeled in pain against the tree and hit his head. After he hit his head, a piece of his memory returned to him for a few seconds before he lost it. 

Asta rubbed the back of his head while trying to remember what he saw. “What was that? Dammit, this is getting frustrating. Why is this happening to us?” Asta asked himself. Asta contemplated hitting his head on the tree again when a roar came from inside the base. Asta saw the monster rip the hideout's doors and throw them at the Black Bulls. Finral barely had enough time to react and sent the door flying back towards the creature. It revealed its claws and slashed the door into pieces before focusing its attention on Luck. The monster rushed over to Luck, barely giving him enough time to dodge out of the monster's path. It managed to get a large scratch on Luck's side, causing him to double over for a few seconds. The creature rushed over to Luck again but stopped when Magna smacked it in the head with his flame bat. The monster grabbed Magna’s bat and crushed it in its hands before picking up Magna and throwing him through the base’s walls. 

Vanessa used her magic to tie the monster up and throw it into the air, where Luck jumped up and attacked it. Luck and the monster moved too fast to see their attacks, but it looked like it was getting the upper hand on Luck. The two fell back down quickly, causing a huge dust cloud to form around them. When the dust had settled, they saw the monster holding Luck by his head with a grin on its face. It began to crush Luck’s head before Magna appeared from above and brought his bat down on its head. It dropped Luck on the ground while Magna continued to hit the monster with his bat. 

Luck got up and quickly moved away from them and over to Noelle. The two nodded at each other before they opened their grimoires and said, “Union-Magic: Electric Current.” A huge lightning bolt made of water shot towards the monster as Magna jumped out of the way. The bolt hit the monster hard, knocking it back over to where Asta was standing. It convulsed on the ground next to him for a few seconds before going limp again. 

Asta cautiously moved away from it before hearing it muttering, ”It hurts. Everything hurts, ” over and over in a distorted version of his voice. “What the...'' Asta replied in shock. The monster started to move its arm before Magna ran over and brought his bat down on its head again. “We have to get out of here before this thing wakes up. Finral, start by getting Asta out of here, ” Magna shouted. Before Asta could object, a portal opened up under him, and he fell into a pit of darkness once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! I'm sorry that it's really short, my motivation to write fluctuated when I was writing. I've also been thinking a lot about my gender identity recently, and it's also impacted my writing as well. I won't delve into it, so I'll move onto the next thing. I don't know when I'll publish the next chapter, so if you haven't yet, I would like you to bookmark this story. I'll also be sure to change the summary when I think I'll release the chapter. That's all for now, thanks for being patient with me, and have a great day/night.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on this website and probably won't be that good at all, but I'm going to try my best. I hope you enjoy this story of my favorite ship from my favorite series. Side note, this story will probably be updated very rarely, so don't expect the next chapter for at least a few months. Just kidding, I'll try to update when I can. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.


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